


The Loveliest Nightmare

by nightmare_kisser



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Asylum, Escape, F/M, False Memories, Fights, Humans, Insanity, M/M, Manipulation, Memories, Mutants, Other, Past Lives, Plot-heavy, Plotting, Rehabilition, Reincarnation, Romance, Smut, Uncertain Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:06:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 67,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmare_kisser/pseuds/nightmare_kisser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to the D-Wing. My name is Charles, but please, call me Professor X. I think you'll like it here; we're all good friends. We used to be mutants, you see, in another reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Violet Room](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/8229) by Sarehptar. 



> Inspired by Sarehptar's Kingdom Hearts fanfiction, 'The Violet Room.' Of course, I am changing things around a lot, but the basic idea is there. It's done out of respect, of course, because I adore that fanfic more than I can express in words.
> 
> Title inspired by the song, "Lovely Nightmares" by Katie Prior.

"Charles? Charles, please, come to the door; it's time for your medicine," the soft voice of one of the clinic's many nurses says through the grated window of the white door.

"Ah, Miss MacTaggert; it's lovely to see you again," comes an answering voice, and a short man of about five feet and seven inches comes to the door, his brown hair being combed back by a hand as he smiles lopsidedly at her through the square window, and she hands him a small paper cup with two pills in it through a slot just beneath it.

"You see me _every_ day, Charles," she kindly reminds, and her brown eyes flicker with pity. He is only twenty-five, fresh from college, not even a professor quite yet like he wanted to be, and already he's been confined here. She sighs. "And please, Charles, no tricks; actually _take_ your medicine this time, won't you? For me?"

He chuckles, the sound dead and hollow, and it makes her wince, because everything he says and does is always empty, as if he's living another life inside his head and isn't at all connected to his true life, the one he has here, at the clinic.

He licks his chapped, rosy lips and nods. "For you, Moira dear, anything," and he downs the pills without water, swallowing them whole and dry. He makes a face, grunting with distaste, and crumples the paper cup in his fist automatically. He hands it to her through the slot for her to throw away.

"Thank you, Charles," she says softly. "Would you like anything to drink? Or eat? It isn't mealtime, but I could smuggle you an apple from the kitchen, or –"

"No, I would like to return to my writing," he says, and with a smile, he turns away from the door. He knows that Moira MacTaggert means well, and he knows that he's her favorite patient, and he also knows all too well that she has a bit of a crush on him, but he can't be bothered by her. She isn't the Moira he once knew, and for that reason, she means nothing to him.

"Oh… yes, that's fine. Do you need any more –?" she asks as a final inquiry.

"No more paper just yet, but thank you anyhow, Miss MacTaggert. Have a good day," he calls over his shoulder, dismissing her, as he sits down to his typewriter. They wouldn't permit him one for many months, for fear of him using the heavy object to kill himself or wound an employee. But once he proved that he could work his way up through the writing utensils without consequence – the crayons, the pencils, the pens, the sheets of paper, the composition books, the spiral notebooks – they gave him, finally, his typewriter, and he loves it very dearly.

He hears Moira leave, exiting down the hallway with a click of her heels.

Charles cracks his knuckles, settles criss-cross-applesauce in his chair, and gets to typing.

After all, he's the only one who can catalogue his memories, isn't he?

-0-

"I don't like that Xavier boy," Sebastian remarks coldly to his two main nurses for the D-Wing, Charles Xavier's section of the asylum. "He thinks he runs this place. He doesn't. _I_ run this place."

"But Mr. Shaw," Moira butts in, a frown on her face, "He's a good patient. Charles is kind to the others, and most of the time, he writes, and we're seen what he's writing; it's some sort of fictional tale about mutated humans and himself depicted as one of the leaders of the race. It's something he thinks is a memory, true, but it isn't dangerous –"

"The Hell it's not, Miss MacTaggert! He depicts himself as the hero and _me_ as the villain. The villain! _Me!_ Even after all I do for these poor individuals. And then he has to go and convince others in this ward that they are part of his elaborate story, that they should ' _remember_ ' along with him that they were mutants like he was, and it's corruption, I tell you!" Sebastian argues, and his face is tinting pink, his usual false smile not in place when it doesn't have to be, all his forced politeness with his patients missing in this moment.

Emma Frost speaks up this time, having been choosing the proper moment to voice her own opinion on things. "I don't like him much either, sir. The way he looks at me… It's like he can see into my mind, and I don't like the intrusive feeling. Every time I try to ask him something, he beats me to it by saying it aloud. It's unnerving."

Moira bites the inside of her cheek. She just experienced this moments ago when Charles knew that she was going to ask about paper before she even uttered a word of it. She shoves the thought aside and tries to approach the warden with a softer tone. "Charles doesn't mean to cause trouble or implant ideas into others' heads. He simply likes to share his ideas. He's very creative, and –"

"I know, I know; 'the most creative artists on this planet throughout history have been just as insane as he.' I understand, Moira," Sebastian grits out. He turns away from the two nurses and sighs, pinching the bridge between his eyes. Lifting his head, one hand keeping him balanced as it rests on the top of his desk. He says to them both, "Gather up Janos and Azazel, will you? I need extra guards for the patient we have arriving today. He's a violent one; deemed criminally insane. Unfortunately, we can't put him in solitary confinement just yet, because Mr. Summers seems to keep that room well occupied. Instead, we'll have to resort to putting him in Xavier's wing. It's the only one with rooms left for someone as dangerous as this one."

"What's his name?" Emma asks, plucking a file from Shaw's hands as she steps over to him, Moira nodding and leaving the room to assemble the guards.

"Lehnsherr. Erik Lehnsherr. He seems to think everyone is a Nazi, and that he's back in World War II as a rogue Jew," Sebastian says with a long sigh, shaking his head. "Poor boy. He's only twenty-seven years old. How can he be so mentally distraught at twenty-seven?"

"Good question, Mr. Shaw," Emma agrees, adjusting her white dress and tucking the file folder under her arm. "I'll see to him once he's calmed down a bit in his room."

-0-

"Don't look at me; I'm a monster. Please, please don't look at me," he murmurs to himself, nearly in a whisper. Charles walks over to him and places a comforting hand on his shoulder, but the younger boy cringes and curls in on himself, whimpering like a wounded dog. "No, no! Don't _touch_ me, either! I'll hurt you, I'm a monster, I'll –"

" _Hank,"_ Charles says, and the boy stops shaking. He blinks behind large spectacles and slowly raises his head from behind his drawn-up knees.

"How do you know my human name?" he says, voice soft. "No one's called me that in a long time. I'm Beast. I'm a monster."

"No, you're not," Charles returns gently, and he pats the brunet on the back, rubbing in circles. "You're Hank, Hank McCoy. And you are very much human, my friend."

"I am?" the younger boy asks quietly, and looks as though he might cry. He doesn't seem to think he can believe it. "But… I did do monstrous things. My sister is dead. It was an accident, but I did it. I killed her. _I'm a monster._ "

And then Hank tears himself from Charles' grasp, fleeing from Charles' side, and runs to the corner of the Roaming Room, curling into a ball with his forehead pressed against the wall.

Charles stands, dusts his pajamas (no one is given clothes unless they have earned it, and no one in D-Wing ever earns privileges that far up the line), and cracks his knuckles.

"Stop that!" someone snaps at him, and Charles turns to find a gruff man with smoking privileges taking a log drag from a cigar, blowing it out irately from his nostrils on his scruffy face. "I hate the sound of cracking bones. Pisses me off."

"I'm sure it would, James. I'm sorry," Charles says, and steps away from James Howlett, his fingers twitching to finish being cracked, but he resists until he's out of earshot of the older man.

"Don't fucking call me that," the other retorts. "'M Logan. _Logan._ James is dead. I quit being 'James' a long time ago, back when me 'n' Victor went our separate ways."

"You two must have been close," Charles remarks.

"Not necessarily," the other scoffs. "Now will you shove off? You're buggin' me," Logan snarls, and Charles nods deftly, turning away to talk to someone else. He doesn't get to socialize often with the other patients in the D-Wing, and when he can, he likes to remind them of who they were and how he used to know them.

"Raven, my dear," he says when he sees a blonde girl a few years younger than him come from her room and into the Roaming Room. She's smiling, but she doesn't realize that she is. She has a dreamy expression on her face, and she immediately moves into Charles' open arms, snuggling against his collar. "So good to see you again."

"I had another dream, Charles," she whispers into his shirt, and he can feel the stale, hot breath from her mouth on his neck. "I was different people again. And when I woke up, I asked them if I could paint my room."

"What color, love?" Charles asks, pulling away just enough to touch her face, brushing her messy, wavy hair from her eyes.

"Blue. Blue everywhere," she says, giggling hysterically, ducking her head back into his shirt. Muffled, she adds, "Because in my dream, I was blue. I was blue, and my hair was as red as a firetruck, and I was so pretty. I didn't think I was pretty in the dream, but when I woke up, I thought I was pretty. Isn't blue the best color?" she asks, lifting her head and looking into his eyes. She touches the corner of one eye, just on the bone of his eye-socket at the top of his cheek, and she smiles faintly again. "Darker than your eyes, but still. Still so blue. I love blue."

"I know you do, Raven," Charles hums, and she hangs on one of his arms as they moves around the room, talking to others. Charles drops into a crouch, and Raven follows suit, falling to her knees beside him as he peers up at a boy sitting in a chair. "And how are you today, Sean?"

Sean doesn't reply. He never does. He's a mute.

Charles stands again, sighing, and gently petting Sean's mop of wild orange hair, smoothing it down. "Another time, then."

Raven whispers things to herself under her breath, always sounding like someone else when she does. When she speaks to him, she is Raven, but when she speaks to herself, she is any of a number of other personalities who don't even know that 'Raven' exists. But she always clings to him arm like an anchor to hold her steady through the shifting voices and people in her head.

"Armando!" Charles says cheerfully, and the African American man hardly looks at him. Charles shakes off the coldness and continues to smile. "How are you, my friend?"

"We should start calling each other by our nicknames," Armando says idly, and he fiddles with a Rubik's Cube in his hands. "I'm starting to feel less and less like 'Armando,' you know? And this place makes us not who we were; makes us different people."

"A valid point," Charles agrees, and he looks at the blonde on his arm, smiling. "What do you think, Raven?"

She snaps from a daze, bring brought back to herself. "I'm Mystique."

Charles chuckles and pats one of her hands on his arm. "Yes, indeed you are. And I am Professor X."

"And I'm Darwin," Armando says, grinning now. "Hank is already Beast. And I'm sure we can get Sean and Logan to be Banshee and Wolverine. But where's Havok?"

"Alex is in solitary again," Charles sighs sadly. "The poor boy loves it in there. He says that it's the only place he can think. The soundproof walls might be part of the reason."

"He likes the jacket," Darwin adds. "Says it keeps him warm, and his arms around him feel like his brother's, he says. Poor guy doesn't seem to know that Scott died in the fire with the rest of the family."

"Ah, too true," Charles agrees, nodding. "He still believes that Scott is out there somewhere, along with Gabriel. But all of the Summers are dead except Alex. Poor, poor boy."

"Havok," Darwin corrects and reminds.

"Yes, of course; forgive me. I meant to call him that," Charles says, and soon, he's walking away again, watching Angel out of the corner of his eye. She's one of the cafeteria staff; she bakes. She sees who Charles talks to, and hears what he says. She's a risk for what he does, because she always secretly reports to Sebastian Shaw, the warden of the asylum. And she's also very familiar. Charles remembers her, and her dragonfly wings. But she doesn't remember, and if she does, she's too terrified of it to accept it.

"Professor, would you like to see the newest addition?" Mystique suddenly giggles, starting to tug him toward the locked front doors of the entrance to the D-Wing, just down the hallway from the Roaming Room. "I forgot to tell you, but I heard Miss Frost talking to that cute guard Azazel. There's someone new coming today! Want to wait for him?"

"Him?" Professor X repeats, raising his left brow at his sister-figure.

She nods enthusiastically. "Yes! I don't know how old he is, but it's a boy. Miss Frost said, 'Be ready for this one. He's violent.' And I know she said 'he' and not 'she' because I was listening very carefully through the slot in my door," Mystique tells him, and she looks so thrilled that he can't help but beam at her.

"Well then, this _is_ very exciting. Yes, let's go wait for him. I wonder what he's like, and who he is," he says to her as she brings him flush against the door, the guards in the distance, down by the A-Wing, and the entrance adjacent to it. The white-painted metal of the door chills the young man, but he remains where he is.

"Want to pass the time with a song? I don't know he'll get here," Mystique declares after about five minutes of silence between them.

Professor X nods. "Let's." He pauses, then, with a bit of a bounce in his tone, he sings a favorite of theirs that he knows she can join in singing: " _Two little boys had two little toys, each had a wooden horse / Daily they played, each summer's day; warriors, both, of course…"_

-0-

It's about thirty minutes that they wait until there's a loud commotion going on outside the doors. A man, restrained by _four_ men, comes roaring in, shouting profanities and other outrages. He is about Charles' age, he looks like a worn soldier, and he looks so shocking familiar that it makes Charles back up a few steps from the door, one hand clamping over his mouth.

Raven goes from yelling, "There, _there!_ That must be him! Ooh, wow, he's a fighter, and so cool! Look, Professor X, look –" to turning away from the door, her nails scratching as they slip from the frame around the grated, glassed window as she becomes heavily concerned, her smile vanishing like a puddle in the sun. " _Charles!_ What's wrong?"

He's got a wide-eyed expression on his face, and suddenly, he starts groaning, falling to the floor with his hands to his head as an onslaught of painful and blissful memories both plague his mind, gathering and dispersing in and out like ocean waves during a storm.

"Erik," he gasps, and scrambles to his feet – wait, no, where's his wheelchair? If Erik's here, there should be a wheelchair – to head back to his room.

"Charles? Charles!" Raven calls out, and she fights between returning to the door to watch the newcomer wrestle with the guards and hopefully greet him as he comes in, or running after her beloved mentor and comforting him.

She decides to do neither. Instead, the blonde falls into a different personality altogether and returns without a word to her blue room.

-0-

"Here we are," Emma says in her best voice, buckling Erik down in a chair in his new room. It's stripped of all privileges; there is only a cot, a toilet, a small sink, and a plastic drawer set for pajamas and socks and underwear. The walls and sheets are all white, and it's blaringly deafening in the silence of the cell. "Nice and comfy, are we?"

"Go to Hell, bitch," Erik spits, and she recoils, her complacent smile twitching brighter.

She removes and replaces the nurse's cap in her blonde hair and replies, "I most likely already am, Mr. Lehnsherr. Now, if you please, calm down for a while and get a good look at this room, because you might be here for a while." And her tone is off, sounding falsely sweet and falsely warm, and Erik doesn't like her, not one bit. "We'll come back inside and remove the restraints when we think you're not going to retaliate or try to make an escape."

And with that, she turns on her heel, her shoes clacking on the tile as she exits the room and shuts the door behind her, locking it with a final metal _clunk_ before disappearing down the hall.

Erik closes his eyes and rests his head back onto the top of the chair. He slowly eases his body down from its adrenaline high of fighting the guards, kicking and biting and clawing and yelling, to resist being put away into a cage like some feral animal at a zoo.

His heart calms to a steady pace, his breathing slows to a regular rhythm, and he lets his muscles go lax in the chair, hands unclenching, feet sliding forward on the floor. There are splinters and tears of skin under his nails, and there's blood from someone he hit in the nose smelling strong where it spattered on his shirt collar and shoulder. Erik is a mess, his hair out of place and a bruise forming on his defined cheekbone.

But at least he won a small victory: someone bled, and it wasn't him.

He smirks a little.

 _Foolish human; don't they know_ _ **anything?**_ he thinks, as if he were superior to them, or separate from them entirely.

And with a controlled pull on his restraints, the buckles on the leather straps on his wrists give, and he slips out of them, moving his hands to release the chest-restraints. He stands from the chair, self-satisfied, and paces over to the bed in the room.

Then, without a conscious thought of wrong or regret, Erik falls asleep under the thin, scratchy blankets.


	2. Calm His Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, I know. But put in a good work for me with the warden, won't you? I'm sure he won't protest if he knows that my intentions are good. Perhaps I might even be able to tame the brute? Calm his mind?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musical motivators: Broken Iris' songs, "The Eyes of Tomorrow" (which mentions, "The doctor says, 'I'm sorry, you must atternd your little white room again,' to my little white room... Maybe we're all insane, with the way we live...') and "We're Not Alone," because I think the title speaks for itself.
> 
> Also, I often write this fic to the SuckerPunch and the Uninvited soundtracks. Just sayin'.

"Charles? How are you today?" Moira says softly, moving into the young man's room two days following Erik Lehnsherr's arrival at Schmidt's Home for the Mentally Unstable. "You gave us quite a fright, locking yourself in your room for two days, not eating or drinking anything. You didn't even take your medicine…"

"I apologize for the scare," Charles returns, taking the food tray from her hands and placing it on his lap in his bed. "But I assure you that I'm quite all right, now. I'm just hungry, that's all." And, as if to prove his point, Charles tucks into his bland cafeteria food (something rarely delivered to anyone unless they are in solitary confinement or physically ill).

"That's good to hear. And I have some medicine," Moira adds, holding up the small paper cup. "It should help prevent any more panic attacks. I know that new patient startled you and triggered it; he is rather violent, I know –"

"He wasn't the problem at all," Charles says, turning and looking at her with shock on his face. "How could you say that? Erik didn't do anything wrong."

"…Erik? How do you know Mr. Lehnsherr's first name?" the nurse questions, a frown on her face. "…Charles?" she tacks onto the silence that lasts for well over a minute as he ignores her and continues eating.

He takes another full minute before he replies, finishing up his watery-tasting mashed potatoes. "This could use some salt," he remarks, and Moira's frown only deepens.

"Charles, please," she pleads, touching his forearm. "Answer me."

"He's in my writing," Charles says quietly, and he dares to look her dead in the eye, his blue gaze intensely cold, and it makes Moira shudder. Charles is normally so very inviting, normally so warm and compassionate; this is a side of him that Nurse MacTaggert isn't familiar with, and it terrifies her more than her concern over him being so reclusive for forty-eight hours.

"He… what?"

"Erik Lehnsherr. _Magneto._ He's in my writing," Charles repeats as if she were a Neanderthal. He gestures to his typewriter and stack of used and unused papers on the small desk on one side of his bed, the chair nearly touching the side of the bed with how small the room is. "I knew him, before."

"Before you came to this facility?" Moira asks, still frowning with confusion.

Charles resists losing his patience and rolling his eyes at her. Instead, he forces a smile on his lips. "No, before this life, in another one. The alternate reality where he and I are mutants. You know the story, Miss MacTaggert; I've told you time and time again about how you were part of the CIA, and how Erik and I would travel around, collecting mutants for a greater cause. It's a shame, really, that we all had to be born in this world, so separate from the one we came from, isn't it? Empty incarnations without the same purpose to our lives…"

And here his eyes grow incredibly sorrowful, and Moira has to look away, because the look on the brunet man's face is heart-wrenching. But it's all a fabrication of his imagination, she knows. None of it is real, even if he's convinced Raven and Armando of it, and even if he believes it so completely himself.

"Right. Yes, I know. Sorry for misunderstanding. Here, ah… let me, let – I'll take your tray back to the cafeteria, all right? Here, take this medicine, and then I'll leave you to return to your writing," Moira relays as carefully as she can.

Charles nods, downs the pills dry again, and sets the scrunched cup on the empty metal tray. "Before you go, Nurse, might I ask a favor?" And there's a smile again, but this one is more genuine, more sweet and polite, like a child about to ask for ice cream.

Moira softens. "Sure, Charles. What would you like?"

He folds his hands together and rests them in his lap. "I know that Erik is bound to his room for the first two weeks like the rest of us were until we could prove that we could handle being around others… but may I establish a visitation with him? Go to his room for an hour, perhaps tomorrow, and speak with him? I want to get to know him, to see if he's the same Erik I remember, since he certainly looks the same."

MacTaggert blinks, not quite sure how to respond. "I…" She inhales deeply through her nose, her brown eyes searching his face. Slowly, she replies, "I would have to bring it up to Mr. Shaw and ask him permission. I don't have that authority, Charles."

"Oh, I know. But put in a good work for me with the warden, won't you? I'm sure he won't protest if he knows that my intentions are good. Perhaps I might even be able to tame the brute? _Calm his mind_?" And he smirks at this, and Moira doesn't understand why.

She feels unnerving vibes in the mint-green-painted room, and she nods, taking her leave and locking the door habitually behind her. Something has changed in Charles, and she fears it might only worsen if his request is filled.

-0-

"Absolutely not," Sebastian declares, aghast at the mere idea of it. "Xavier has already brainwashed enough of my patients in the D-Wing to believe his delusion, and to lose someone like Erik Lehnsherr who might actually be redeemable and possibly one of my biggest, most compelling reform stories? I can't have that."

Moira backs right off, stepping away and bowing her head. "I'm sorry, Warden. I only thought it might be good for one or both of them, since Charles feels this connection to him –"

"Oh, that manipulative bastard feels a connection to _everyone._ Don't get sucked into his antics, Miss MacTaggert; it will only bring you down in the end," he warns, and picks up a drink and brings it to his lips. There isn't any alcohol allowed in the clinic, but of course the warden is permitted to have some wine every now and then. _Of course._

Moira clenches her fists, but she relents. "You're right. I'll just be going then, Mr. Shaw."

"Good. And on your way out, send Miss Frost in here. There are… a few things I'd like to discuss with her," he grins, and Moira is revolted by the leer in his eyes; she knows he's probably having _boundary-crossing relations_ with her co-worker, and while Sebastian Shaw is a handsome man, Moira can't comprehend what Emma sees in someone so power-hungry and defensive, and how Emma can possibly think an employee-and-employer relationship can be at all moral or healthy.

Sighing, Moira leaves the office located at the hub of the four wings of the building, located just behind the reception desk in front of the entrance nestled between two of the wings. She makes a noise as she steps around a guard – Janos, judging by his flowing brown hair alone – and heads for the staff's supply closet.

It's located in the A-Wing, half of the wing dedicated to staff because the other half if shared with the best of the patients, the ones who have Outside and Visitation privileges, all with capital letters, because it's a very high honor. They also get to wear all their own clothes, and go home for Breaks, like holidays and birthdays and the like.

Essentially, Moira reflects, the ranking is like letter grades: A-Wing is for A-minus-to-A-plus earning patients who have great behavior and minor cases of mental illness, or are nearly fully recovered. B-Wing is for the recovering, those who are just a notch below the A-list, who have almost as many privileges, like some Outside, some of their own clothes, but no Breaks. The C-Wing, however, is much rougher; they don't have Visitors or Outside privileges. They can, however, wear their own clothes. Between the wings, A- and B-Wing may freely walk around the clinic, whereas the C- and D-Wing patients only have the Roaming Room to congregate.

It's a very reliable system, she thinks as she slips into the supply closet and searches for a ring of keys. She finds them, carefully closes her hands around the dangling keys to muffle the sound and prevent clinking around, and slips back out of the closet. These are the spare keys for the janitors, and they are always hidden in the same place, and after years of working here, Moira knows exactly where they are.

She strides down the hall as casual as can be, her hand full of keys tucked casually into the pocket of her white dress, the same button-up scrubs that every female nurse is required to wear. Her white heels clack loudly in her ears, echoing with guilt with each step, and she swallows and lifts her chin higher as she sets her sights on the D-Wing.

Moira glances around, unlocks Alex Summers' solitary confinement door, and asks if he would please try to socialize today, if at least with Armando, like comparing pinball scores like they used to or something of the sort.

With a grunt, Alex nods his head. She smiles, slips into the padded room, and unties and unbuckles the arms of Alex's straightjacket, and he finishes off the final Velcro straps and zippers along the front.

"I can wear it again after I talk to some people, right? I like that jacket," the blond, teenage boy says in a raspy version of his deep, rich voice.

"I know you do, Alex," Moira replies softly. "And yes, you may wear it again. But please, go out for a bit, won't you? And try not to let your temper get the better of you," she says as sweetly as she can, and he offers a lopsided smile and nods his head. He leaves the room, and Moira is thankful that she has a distraction for the guards and other patients while she completes her true task.

The nurse slips down the hall and comes to Charles' room. She opens the door and finds him staring at the ceiling, head at the foot of his bed, feet propped up on his pillow. He angles his head backward, chin in the air, and grins openly at her. "Nurse MacTaggert, hello. This is unexpected."

"Hurry now, Charles; we don't have much time. Alex can only keep them busy for so long," she hisses, gesturing to wave him from his room to out in the corridor.

"Are we going to see Erik without Mr. Shaw's permission?" Charles inquires, grinning broader. "My, my, dear girl; you'll get us both in trouble."

"I know, Charles, which is why we need to move quickly. Come, won't you? I can't promise an hour of time, but I can guarantee fifteen minutes at the least," she informs him as he gets up from his bed and slips on his ward-issued, grey-but-used-to-be-white robe over his also ward-issued, powder-blue-that-used-to-be-cerulean pajamas. He rushes out of the room, a blur of washed-out color, and follows the auburn-haired nurse down the hall and around the right hook of D-Wing to stop before Erik's door, located at the tip of one half of the T-intersection each long wing ends in.

Charles nods to Moira, who finds the key and unlocks the door. Charles doesn't look inside as he nudges his way inside, the fluorescent lighting flickering overhead. He looks at Moira. "Keep close, and warn me when I need to leave."

"Can do. Good luck with him, Charles," she says, and the door closes, separating them both.

Charles turns around and faces the other man in the room, expecting him to be in the chair in the center, the one with restraints.

He isn't there.

And he isn't in the bed, either, and Charles takes a step forward, peering around, wondering where Erik could possibly be hiding in a room so small and blank –

"Freeze," a low, commanding voice sounds directly behind Charles.

The shorter brunet goes stiff, freezing as instructed, when he feels an arm lock around his chest like a safety bar on a roller coaster, and something pointed – a shank? – pricks his throat, stinging only when he swallows around his suddenly cotton-dried mouth.

The voice sounds again, breath hot on the shell of Charles' ear. "Who are you, and what do you want with me? You aren't dressed like a guard or a nurse, or any of the higher-ups. Are you a patient?"

"Yes, Erik," Charles whispers. "I am like you; I'm a patient, labeled insane for whatever legal or political reason. Please, put the weapon away, and let me help you. I know you, my friend, and I would never mean you harm."

Erik retracts his blade; it is, indeed, a shank, forged from twisted and compressed tin foil, layered and layered to make it heavy and pointed enough to poke an eye out or, with enough pressure, tab into someone's jugular. Charles shudders at the thought.

When they finally face one another, the violent patient's face changes and he stares at Charles for a long, long time, not uttering a word, simply staring. His eyes look incredibly green in this odd lighting, his skin yellowish, and Charles' skin looks incredibly white, his eyes nearly grey.

"You know me?" Erik repeats at last, his voice sounding as though it's lost most of its insensitive edge. "Because, now that I have a good look at you… You look familiar. But we've never met. I don't even know your _name._ "

"Charles Francis Xavier," he offers, and holds out his hand. Erik hesitates, glancing down at the appendage. After a short moment of thought, he deems it safe to hide his foil shank and grasp Charles' hand. Charles' fingers are cold, his palm lukewarm, and his nails are all bitten down into nubs, the cuticles pink and irritated from being nibbled off as well. They are nothing like Erik's heated, calloused hands.

"And you said my name. How did you know it?"

"From another lifetime. You had the same name then as you do now; Erik Lehnsherr. Tell me, my friend, do you remember anything of that time?" And his tone is soft, low, and friendly. His eyes are big and blue and welcoming, and Erik finds himself stepping closer against his usual resolve. Charles licks his lips, smiles. "Have you ever dreamt that you could do impossible things, and with people of equal impossibilities?"

"I could bend metal in my dreams," Erik whispers. "I could lift an entire man in the air because he had metal on his bones. I had a woman by my side who could turn into anyone. I watched people smash through walls and light fire in their palms. I've dreamt of plenty of what you're talking about, Charles. But the question is," and he steps closer again, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, "How do you know what I dream, aside from my nightmares?"

Charles grins. "Because, my dear, old friend: I have the same dreams. And all because we are incarnates, you and I; we are from another reality, a parallel universe of sorts, where we were mutants. Mutated humans. Doesn't it sound familiar? Don't you _remember_ what you are, _who_ you are?"

It is Charles' turn to step closer, and now they are inches apart. He reaches up and touches Erik's cheek. Erik recoils, but only for a moment. Soon, his eyes are widening, and he's leaning forward again, putting his face into Charles' open and waiting hand, his own hands coming up to grip the tattered lapels of Charles' robe.

"I _do_ remember. Form my dreams, I remember. I –" And he falters, eyes searching Charles' eyes, and his own wide and bewildered, and Charles' lowered and patient, as calm as the sea at the eye of a storm. Then, a single word, a _name_ comes to Erik's mind. He shoves Charles away roughly, and Charles catches himself on the wooden restraint chair. "Get out! Get the fuck out before I cut you and spill your blood!"

"You know, don't you? Who you were meant to be," Charles responds coolly, standing to full height and circling Erik, making his way to the door, even as Erik withdraws his shank again and glares at the shorter brunet. Charles chuckles. "You can't hurt me, Erik. You would never hurt me, not intentionally. Just think, won't you? Think on that word, that _title._ I know you thought of it."

That said, that left hanging in the air between them, Charles winks and slips out of the enclosure, finding Moira and getting guided back to his own comfy prison.

"That was barely over ten minutes," Moira says in wonder. "What did you say to him, Charles?"

"Nothing he didn't already know," the brunet says with self-satisfaction.

Back in his room, Erik punches the wall.

That word won't leave him; the unspoken name, unspoken title, the ghost of a past he can't remember but Charles seems to think exists, the word he's heard countless times during his slumber –

It rattles around in his head like a screw in an aluminum can, echoing and rebounding, repeating itself over and over like a spell's mantra:

_…... _…_ Magneto, _

_…... _…... _…__ Magneto, _

_…... _…... _…... _…... _…___ Magneto.__


	3. Background

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles isn't at his typewriter. He's instead napping on his bed, curled on one side with a hand tucked under his pillow.

"Who let Mr. Summers out yesterday? It took us an hour to calm him down after screaming at Mr. Cassidy for ten minutes to speak to him, when we all know that Sean is mute and going through vocal coaching and therapy to get him to speak! And then Mr. Lehnsherr says he met with Mr. Xavier against the warden's wishes? –Honestly, who brought about this outrage? The warden is _not_ happy!" Emma scolds all of the guards, janitors, and nurses assigned to the D-Wing.

"Why are you bitching at us instead of in line with us? You're one of the nurses in his division," Angel sneers, her arms folded tightly over her defined chest, her Latina skin contrasting beautifully with her dark grey serving uniform.

Emma lifts her nose into the air ever so slightly. "Because I have an alibi. I was in the warden's office, helping him with paperwork –"

"I did not know that was what they were callingk blowjobs these days," Azazel smirks in his Russian accent, his icy blue eyes piercing, even the milky one peering from under the long scar running vertically along the left side of his face. "Really, Miss Frost, if you were not so _preoccupied_ –"

"Quiet!" she shrieks, and the line goes silent, but not without a few of the people in line smiling to themselves behind their hands, or quite openly, because Emma's telltale blush is enough. "Now, is anyone going to confess or rat someone out, or am I going to have to fire all of you for the patients getting out of their wards when they weren't supposed to? This is an _organized_ mental institute, everyone. There needs to be order, and that order needs to be maintained," Emma continues to scold after her outburst.

Moira is awful at lying. She is good at keeping secrets, not saying anything, but she is awful at directly lying to someone's face. So she chooses to instead look at Emma's hair; it's close to her face, so the direction is the same, and it is rather neat and perfect, and Moira is almost jealous, but not quite. She uses this as an excusing thought to keep her mind off of the guilt she already feels for going so blatantly against orders, all on account of her loyalty to the patients and not the head of the facility.

"Moira? Sugar, you look pretty nervous," Emma just about _purrs_ like a cat who caught the canary, and she smirks a little as she paces down the line to touch Moira's chin, forcing their eyes to meet. "Is there something you'd like to tell me about this catastrophe?"

Moira bats Emma's hand away and shakes her head, frown settling into place. "It's hardly a _catastrophe,_ Emma. And it won't happened again, so do you honestly need to do this?"

The blonde's face falls. "Mr. Shaw's orders. But you know what? You're right. How silly of me. You should all just speak to Mr. Shaw one by one and give your explanations and excuses while I tend to the patients before lunch. Ta," she sniggers, and with a wave of her delicate hand, she leaves the room.

Everyone goes into the warden's office one at a time, consuming an hour of the day altogether. They all tell the truth except Moira. And Sebastian can tell, but he doesn't fire her or inform her at all that he knows what she did. Instead, he waits to see how this will play out, and for that, he needs her around.

"Don't worry about patients 214657 and 214782. Sure, they met earlier than I would have liked, but I trust it was for the best, don't you?" He turns around and faces away from Moira, and she swallows nervously. "Do you know why we give patients numbers, Miss MacTaggert?"

"To keep a file record of all of the in and out patients that have passed through this clinic over the years?" she answers docilely.

Sebastian nods and smiles. He glances over his shoulder at her, his hands clasped behind his back. "Precisely. Since this facility opened up in the early nineteen hundreds and has been fully operational – not to mention adaptational to the times – over the years, being constructed on and redone time and time again. And through that time, we have had over two hundred thousand patients come and go for days, weeks, months, and years, depending on their severity, and some still live here. We have a pleasant system, and one little slip up here and there won't harm a thing, now, will it?"

The nurse nods, speechless. Sebastian's smile grows, and he dismisses her. When Miss MacTaggert exits his office, she thinks she's off the hook.

"But this is only the start of something life-altering," Shaw grins devilishly, and as he turns back into his office, he pours himself a cup of coffee and bird-watches out his smeary window. He chuckles to himself, watching a cardinal, starkly red against the dismal grey color of the sky, fly in view of the window. "I only hope things go according to _my_ plan for this place, and not according to the plan of someone like Xavier."

-0-

"Hi, I'm Raven, but everyone calls me Mystique. The Professor – oh, that's Charles, you know – tells me that we should call you Magneto. Is that right?" the wavy-haired blonde says, her eyes full of life. She scoots closer to Erik on the bench in the Roaming Room, and timidly reaches out to touch one of the visible scars on his forearm. "He also said that you've been here for just about two weeks, but they haven't let you out of your room. Why haven't they let you out of your room?" And she grips his arm almost painfully, her lengthy nails scraping his skin, but it doesn't seem to affect him in the least. His expression is as deadpan as ever.

Erik pretends not to have heard the M-word fall from her lips. He changes the topic by jerking his head in the freckled, orange-haired boy's direction not too far away. "What is _his_ name? He didn't answer me when I spoke to him, and he is always staring off into space."

Raven glances over, and then her face takes on a sorrowful pouts as she returns to gaze once again to Erik's handsomely angular face. "Aww, that's Sean. We call him Banshee out of irony. They give him a lot of meds, you see, to keep him calm. He goes into fits, and has nightmares when he sleeps. He's a mute."

"Why is he mute? Does anyone know? It takes a lot to drive someone into absolutely silence," Erik growls, already furious with whoever traumatized the boy enough to scare away his voice. Erik despises injustices; if he could he would serve his own justice on all of those who fucked up others through any means.

Raven sighs. "Professor X won't tell me. He says that he only knows because he's snuck into the File Room before. Have you seen the File Room? It's at the front of D-Wing, near the Warden's office in the center. It has so many filing cabinets and papers and manila folders everywhere that it's like a maze!"

"No, but I will have to check that out sometime," Erik grunts in reply. "Where is Charles?"

"Hmm? Oh, he's probably in his room. He likes to write a lot. He has a typewriter! It's so pretty. They wouldn't let him have a computer, so they got him a nice, shiny typewriter. It's black. I like tot touch its smooth, round keys," she whispers, bringing her legs up to her chest and hugging them. She hums and smiles, closing her eyes to rub her cheek against one of her knees. "Sometimes they let me stay in Charles' room for the day, so I don't get as lonely. They say that he helps me stay one person, although I don't know what they mean."

Erik nods, not paying much attention after receiving the answer he wanted to hear. He lightly touches her on the shoulder and tells her to stay put while he goes and sees Charles.

"Wait, I'll come with you! One of the guards likes me, thinks I'm pretty. We can get past him and to Charles' room if we ask for the key," Raven says with a smile, dropping her legs and hopping up. She wraps her arms around one of Erik's, but he shrugs her off. She frowns, but doesn't say anything.

Raven bounds right up to Azazel and plays a cute act, laying on in giggling girlish charm to make the Russian man blush and agree to let Erik through.

"Oh, thank you so much, Azazel! My friend Magneto really does like to talk to the Professor. He might even play chess with him sometime, if you guys get us a board and pieces! Cardboard and plastic, so none of us hurt each other or break something, right? But someone might try to eat the pieces or gnaw on the cardboard," she rattles on, and she glances back at Erik, winking, and he takes it as a sign to slip past Azazel – the man handing him a ring of keys on the way – and down the hall.

Erik doesn't knock, doesn't need to, as he unlocks the door and enters.

Charles isn't at his typewriter. He's instead napping on his bed, curled on one side with a hand tucked under his pillow.

If Erik were more polite and considerate of others, he would leave. But he's been looking for an excuse to speak to Charles again for days now, and asking him about Sean Cassidy as a start is the best excuse he has going at the moment.

He moves near the bed, but just as he's about to reach out and nudge the brunet awake, Charles' eyes open and he rolls onto his back, peering up at a suddenly very wide-eyed Erik.

"Sorry, did I startle you?" Charles yawns, sitting up and scratching an arm as he moves to rubs his eyes clean. "That lock is very noisy. It stirred me from sleep before I heard you come in." He blinks, pans his eyes over to Erik's face, and Erik honestly feels something shift within him, and it's unsettling to have such an effect occur when, in the past, no one has ever made Erik feel anything except rage. "May I help you with something?"

"Raven told me that you know about Sean Cassidy. I like knowing what I can about those around me, so I was hoping you would tell me what his case is," Erik says as he recovers and pulls up Charles' writing chair, sitting in it and crossing his legs as he awaits a response.

Charles nods sadly. "Ah, poor, poor Banshee… Yes, his tale is rather tragic. You know, at the very least, that he is mute, yes?"

"That would be the reason why I'm interested in him," Erik retorts. "I hate it when people don't talk to me when I speak to them, so it made me wonder why he wouldn't answer. And then Raven tells me he's mute, and I needed to know _why._ "

"And I can't very well deny a man knowledge! It would be a sin," Charles relays. He smiles. "Although I do keep it from the others, because they wouldn't understand. But I think you might."

"So tell me, then," Erik snaps.

"Impatient, aren't you? Just like I remember," Charles says softly. Erik is about to question that as well when Charles cuts him off by diving into Sean's story. "You see, dear friend, Sean is mute all because, they said in his file, he screamed too much when he say his parents were slaughtered in front of him. It was a serial killer, they said; one who steals away into homes, waits to pounce, and kills the parents, but leaves the children. The serial killer was brought to justice, given a death sentence, his motive was along the lines of, 'I didn't have loving parents, so no one else should have them, either.' And he always targeted red-haired couples, because his own parents had had red hair. And thus, our poor boy was one of this man's victims."

Erik nods, making sense of it all. "So the patients here, in the D-Wing… they aren't all criminally insane like me? Some are the aftermath of crimes instead?"

"Oh, very much so," Charles nods in agreement. "I'd like to think many of us aren't insane at all, but we're feared for the way we now look at the world, since it's harsher than what normal people see. Darwin, for example –"

"Who?" Erik frowns.

"Ah, Armando, you might have heard him be called by the unknowing guards. He's the African American gentleman, tall and lean, who often chats with Miss Angel, the cafeteria hand. Surely you know her," Charles clarifies, his tone forever friendly and open like the branches of the trees Erik would climb as a child.

"Yes, I know her, and I know him, too. Why do all of you have these nicknames? They confuse me. I'd rather call people by their names," Erik grunts, folding his arms over his chest.

"Not all of us are who we used to be. Our nicknames suit us much better than our birth names, and they sound more personal than our patient numbers," Charles explains gently, and moves to the edge of his bed to face Erik. "You've seen it, haven't you? The number they put on all your clothes, and stuck a sticker of on your door."

The taller man has indeed seen it. He's already memorized it: 214782. He is the two hundred fourteen thousand, seven hundred eighty-second patient to walk through those front doors, and whenever he gets out of here, he doesn't know what number he will be, because some of the patients have never left this place since arrival.

(But he _will_ get out of here, even if he has to do so illegally. Erik can't be condemned to this sort of place for long.)

Charles clears his throat. "Anyhow, Darwin, for example, was another victim, although his case is more unique. He used to be a taxi driver, but he was dragged into a runaway robbery, forced at gunpoint to be the getaway car. The experience mentally ruined him because he ran over someone on the street in his haste and nervousness, and was arrested for manslaughter. They labeled him as an accomplice, despite being unwilling, and his lawyer was able to argue insanity to let him off with a gentler sentence. He should be out of here in another few months, if we can work his way out of D-Wing."

"Why is he still in D-Wing, then? Wouldn't he want to leave?" Erik demands, his brows clouding with an even deeper frown than his usual. "Why would anyone want to stay here?"

"Some of us, unfortunately, have no home to return to. This is our home now. And if you show no sign of progress, you never have to leave," is all Charles says in reply.

"All right, that I can understand, but why is 'Darwin' his nickname, then? Some of your names are a mystery to me," he remarks as he leans back in the chair and observes Charles with a keen eye, taking in every last detail of the man, someone so familiar, someone from his dreams…

Charles crosses his legs as well and rests his hands atop his knees. "'Darwin' was chosen by Armando himself. He liked the thought that he could adapt to most anywhere, like every major city he moved to and became a taxi cab driver for. He even has adapted quite well here, and knows his way around the system enough to remain with us. But Darwin is of the C-Wing, not the D-Wing, to clarify. Our wings share a socializing room. He chooses to be a neutral party, one that is neither in the bottom with us troublemakers, nor at the top of the list, with the nearly-reformed."

Erik is silent for a moment. He doesn't care much about this information; he only wanted to hear Charles speak with that light British accent, and listen to the sound of his voice to try and catch the familiar tones he hears woven into it. Finally, the twenty-seven-year-old replies in a grave tone, "Then why are you in the D-Wing, Charles? You seem just as sane as the people who work here. You haven't killed people like I have in bouts of rage; you just seem to be known as the delusional lunatic, not the violent one. So what's your story?"

"…I'm afraid now isn't the time for that, my friend," Charles replies sweetly, a kind smile faintly touching his lips, but his eyes are dark, the blue looking less innocent than his smile. "Only know that I always have good intentions, Erik. I always want what's best for others in the long run. Now then, shouldn't you be going before you're caught? I think Janos might be coming down the hall as we speak."

And he rises, moving to usher Erik out of his room.

"Wait a damn second!" Erik barks, sharply turning and grabbing Charles' wrist, squeezing tightly.

Pain flickers across Charles' face. "Please, Erik, you're hurting me."

"Who are you, really? You seem to know plenty about me –"

"I know _everything_ about you," Charles whispers. "And none of it scares me. I feel for you, Erik. My heart weeps with empathy at what you've gone through." And he doesn't mention that he stole Erik's file and read it as well, like he does with every D-Wing patients' when they first arrive.

"Shut up! Just tell me how, then; how do you know me? How do _I_ know _you?_ Asking and talking about others is all deflection and denial on both parts. We both know that we need to discuss ourselves," Erik growls, and he leans in close enough to smell Charles. Charles doesn't smell like the rest of the asylum; he smells like polished oak and fall leaves and dusty libraries. He smells like how a castle might smell, or a study within the castle, perched somewhere northern and chilly…

Stunned, Erik releases Charles and backs away. His hand feels cold without the warmth of Charles' flesh under his fingers. He doesn't miss the way his heart picks up its beating as Charles looks intently at him, and suddenly Erik knows that he really _does_ need to leave.

"Another time, Magneto." (Erik shivers at the title given to him.) "Now go, before Janos catches you."

The taller brunet is all too happy to leave. Out in the hallway, sure enough, the Hispanic guard is making his way down the corridor. He snatches the keys from Erik's hand, handing them back to Azazel, and he shoots a glare Erik's way, but doesn't say a word. Erik prays to a God he stopped believing in after his parents became one of the deceased that Janos doesn't report his actions.

Back in the Roaming Room, Erik sits down near a jumpy, rocking boy of his late teens with messy brown hair and skewed, black-rimmed glasses. His eyes are a watery blue, and when he peers over at Erik, he mumbles, "Who are you?"

"I'm Erik," he grunts. "But everyone seems to call me Magneto."

"Oh," the boy says, and he fixes his glasses and tugs at his hair, but doesn't pull it out. "I'm Hank. B-but I'm not human, you know."

"No?" Erik questions, raising a brow. He snorts, thinking to what Charles once said to him. "Then what are you, a mutant?"

Hank laughs bitterly and buries his head in his hands. "No, no. N-no, nothing as nice as that. _No._ I'm a monster. A menace. A _beast._ " He lifts his head. "Where's Alex? I m-miss him. He's the only person who makes me feel like less of a beast, no matter how much he teases me. He at least pays attention to me, besides Charles. But Charles always has people to talk to, other people who need him, and I can't… I can't keep him from helping them." He peers anxiously over at Erik. "Do you know Charles?"

"Yes, I know him," Erik mutters under his breath. He swallows to wet his dry throat. "Why is it you don't call everyone by their nicknames?"

Hank makes an almost animalistic, snarling sound, as he reverts back to holding himself and rocking. "I hate those nicknames. I hate them, _hate_ them! I'm might be a beast, but I'm not _Beast,_ with a capitol _B._ I'm a monster, but I'm not _labeled_ as a monster. There's a difference. There's a huge difference," he relays swiftly. He glances at Erik again. "Do you know Alex? Or where he is? I miss him…"

"He's the one in solitary confinement all the time, isn't he?" Erik comments idly. "If that answers your questions."

"It does. It does, thank you," Hank whispers. He hiccups, but doesn't cry. "Too bad. Too bad… Guess a monster like me doesn't deserve his company. That's okay. It's really okay. I'll go back to my room, now." And just like that, Erik is left alone on the bench.

He looks around the room, finding Darwin talking to Angel from over a counter while she hands him a pudding cup. He sees a man smoking a cigar, hair wild and gaze cold, in the corner; he decides not to speak to him. And then he spies Raven flirting with Azazel, and Janos near them looking on the scene with jealousy, but who toward for what reason, Erik can't tell; he can only tell by the particular scowl and miserable expression that Janos is indeed quite jealous.

Erik sighs and rubs his eyes. He feels tired. He stands, slips out of the room, moving past Janos (raising his hands as he goes to show that he doesn't have any keys this time), and asking to be let back into his room. His _prison._

Janos grunts, nods once, and follows Erik down the hall.

Back in his room, utterly alone, Erik does the only thing he can: he stares off into space until sleep claims him.


	4. The Sound Of A Typewriter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is something poetic and precise about the, 'click-click-click –ding! Shhluck, click-click-clickety-click,' pattern of the keys being tapped, followed by the end of the line's warning bell, and then the sliding back of the roll to reset the line and continue typing.

The sound of a typewriter is one of the most beautiful and musical noises any machine can produce. There is something poetic and precise about the, 'click-click-click –ding! Shhluck, click-click-clickety-click,' pattern of the keys being tapped, followed by the end of the line's warning bell, and then the sliding back of the roll to reset the line and continue typing. It's gratifying to feel, as well as lovely to hear. And Charles gets lost in it for hours at a time per day.

He types out as naturally as breathing,

"The plastic chess pieces were smooth and glossy under my dry fingertips, my aged hands subtly trembling as I made another move on the board. Even confined to that plastic prison, and even confined to a wheelchair as I was, Erik and I were still equals on opposing sides of a chessboard. His hair grayed and mine gone, but I could still see us as we were the day we separated.

_"There were plenty of words left unsaid between us. There always have been. The day we parted, as I described earlier in this memoir, was not too unlike the moment I had here with Erik: we were amiable, we were heartbroken, we were forced apart due to separate ideals and views on the current situation, and we were two men playing world leaders with a small army behind us._

_"Even now, in this life, I can feel the tension as crisply as autumn air in the early morning. I know what I must do: I must act more aggressively than I had while visiting Erik in that plastic prison. Then, I hadn't been in the right mindset to think to set him free of his confines and either join him or take him hostage. I hadn't thought to go after William Stryker before I was taken myself that day._

_"I hadn't thought of a great many things, but I am thinking now._

_"My mind is sharper here, in this asylum; I know so much more now than I ever have before, even when my ability to read minds was more developed than it is now. Currently, I am limited to only being able to use my mind-reading on people closer to me, like Nurse MacTaggert and Erik._

_"Still, I can see the path. I can lead my free-walking feet down it, because in this lifetime, while I am lacking mutation, I am not lacking movement. I can do something great here, as great as I was capable of before, only in a different manner._

_"Truly, this memoir is of all of me, my other-life and my modern one. Truly, this is me finding my place and better part of judgment._

_"This is me taking control of my power, something I always thought I had in the past – control over my abilities – and yet I was such a fool. I was holding back then. But not now; now, I will use all I can to its fullest extent. I wish I had thought of it before the gas seeped into the plastic room of my memories, Erik crying out to me, "You should have killed me when you had the chance!"_

_"But he knew that I could never kill him. I didn't have it in me then, and I don't have it in me now. Erik Lehnsherr is more important to me than most things, aside from my general ideals of the world, and my students. Or, rather, in present time, my_ friends _, those fellow patients I have latched myself onto: Raven, Alex, Hank, Darwin, Sean, and yes, even Logan._

_"Essentially, in this merge of thought, I have come to a single conclusion:_

"As I had failed to free Erik of his plastic prison and our mutant world of discrimination before my death in my other-life, I will not fail this time around. I feel as though this is an opportunity to get it right, and I am not going to waste it.

_"I am going to escape from this asylum with all of the aforementioned friends in tow. And, of course, escape with Erik by my side._

_"And not a soul – not a guard, not the warden,_ no one _– is going to impede me."_

Charles ends the chapter and cracks his knuckles, tearing this final page from the typewriter and retyping it without the additions of his plans. He keeps it strictly to the scene in the prison ward with Erik, playing plastic chess and becoming a victim of Stryker's plans. He even writes in the memory of waking up, tied to his chair with a neural inhibitor on his crown to keep him out of Stryker's mind, as he finds himself in a drippy, cement room beneath Alkali Lake. He ends the chapter that way instead, and adds it to his stack of papers on his desk.

But Charles takes the first edition of this chapter's end and adds it to a secret pocket he made in the underside of his mattress, between the springs. There are other folded papers there, different editions of his memoir, scattered throughout its somewhat jumbled timeline. Most of them are chapter ends like this new one.

The former mutant folds this one up nice and neatly into an origami rat like the others. He slips it into the pocket, lets his mattress fall back onto its frame, and slides backward on the floor in his chair to return to his typewriter. He takes a felt-tipped permanent marker, reaches out with it as he upcaps it, and makes a stroke on his pale green walls.

It's part of a stretching rows of tally marks, each one a count of his pages. And for all of the ones that have alternate pages folded into adorable little lab rats, he makes the tic mark into a miniature cross. He cannot _ever_ miss a single one. They must _all_ be accounted for; this is crucial, because Charles cannot lose track of any memory.

Charles is aware of the fact that Shaw reads his memoir. He knows that they search all the rooms, but they have yet to find his secret stash and unfold any of the rats (they would have worn or torn creases, and Charles has a keen eye for such things). This way, he is safe no matter what they read.

He grins sneakily at the thought. All of his true secrets and plans are protected and private. Utterly _safe._

-0-

"Sean! –Hey, _Banshee._ Look at me, man! –Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you the other day or last week whenever it was. I dunno, I can't keep track of time. But, uh. Anyway. I'm sorry, okay? I forgot you were mute. You know how I forget things. It's the meds, I sweat. But I'm super sorry," Alex murmurs, arms around himself as he feels naked without his straightjacket and padded walls. They had to place Erik into the solitary confinement room for today; he got into a tussle with some of the guards when he tried to go down the hallway, into Charles' room, after lights-out last night.

And so, Alex has been thrown, exposed and dangerous, into the Roaming Room with the others, and his old cell if he so chooses to wander down that way. But he sort of misses being around Sean and Hank, so he rubs his sides, making his own ribs sore, as he attempts to converse with the mute and the trembling boy flanking him.

Sean glances Alex's way, and a small, forgiving smile graces his thin, chapped lips. They look pale. In fact, the redhead looks paler than usual all over, his freckles standing out harshly against his skin. Alex winces when he notices the gauntness of Sean's cheeks.

Alex timidly and sheepishly reaches out a tremulous hand to touch the pads of his fingers to Sean's face, and he watches as Sean recoils, shuddering.

"You've been skipping meals again," Alex states. He frowns, and his tone turns cold. "Dammit, Banshee, I told you that you need to eat! You should eat more. You seem like the kinda guy who used to eat whole fast food joints outta their food. Why won't you eat?"

The freckled boy peers back at Alex, eyes a grassy green, and he shakes his head silently. He points to his mouth, lips parting and jaw opening slightly, and then makes a choking gesture to his own throat.

"What, you think you'll choke? Just because you can't or won't talk doesn't mean your throat is messed up! You can still _eat,_ dumbass!" Alex barks, and Sean flinches again, bringing his knees up to his chest like Hank often does. The blond teen scowls, making a low growling sound for a moment, his fists clenched. Then, just as rushed as his fury had come, it rushes back out again, leaving him soft-faced and apologetic.

Alex leans over and wraps his arms around Sean's shoulders. He feels protective of this boy, someone roughly his age, so close to being like a lost friend or brother or… something else closer than any of that.

"Shh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Alex whispers, and from his other side, Hank lets out a whimper.

"I don't like it when you two fight," the brunet expresses quietly.

"We weren't fighting," Alex returns, pulling away from Sean. "I just lost my cool again, Beast." He smiles slightly, rubbing Sean's shoulder with a thumb before turning to face the slightly older, bespectacled boy. "Hey, did you miss me at all?" he grins. "Did you miss me fucking with you?" and he laughs, quickly ruffling Hank's hair as an example of how he 'fucks with' him.

Hank huffs a laugh, one of his rare smiles in place, and his pale, handsome face lights up with a gentle flush of pink. "Yeah. Yeah, I missed you, you big bully. Even monsters have friends."

Alex's brows meet above his icy grey-blue eyes. "Not cool, man. Not cool. I keep tellin' you that you're not a monster, okay? You didn't get people killed the same way I did. You're fine. You're perfect. You shouldn't even _be_ here!" Alex says, and he roars a bit as he picks up a fly magazine from the nearby end table in the Roaming Room and launches it across the way, a guard saying 'hey!' at him with a sharp voice. Alex simply grunts and ignores the man, and turns back to Hank. "Seriously, stop being so down on yourself all the time."

"Alex?" comes Moira's voice as she moves into the room. "Please, honey, come over here."

He scowls and lifts himself from his seat, stomping over near her, _"What,_ Nurse?"

She smiles stiffly. "You can't talk to him like that. Hank sees his therapist every day to try and fix his self-esteem, and you yelling at him won't speed up the process."

"Why not? He just needs some sense knocked into him! He –" the blond tries, his voice rising.

Her tone is gentle as she places a consoling hand on his shoulder. "Alex, everyone here thinks that they are worse than the other patients around them. You do it, too. But you need to know that no one is more deserving or less deserving of being here, healing, or anything else than someone else. – Oh, my words are a little jumbled, but do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

"I guess so," he mutters grumpily. He rips his shoulder from under the weight of her thin hand and thinks how easily it would be to hurt her, but that's why needs to be in his padded room; he needs to keep others out of harm's way. Harm that he knows he can cause. Because despite what she's saying, Alex knows how dangerous he is, and he knows for a fact that others in here aren't as bad as he is, expect maybe Erik or Logan, because those two are pretty violent themselves.

"All right. Now run along, and be nice to Sean and Hank. They're your friends."

"I know they are. Havok, Banshee, and Beast; we're a trio, like the Three Musketeers. We have each other's backs," Alex says almost proudly. And with that, he retreats to his seat and brings Sean and Hank close to his sides, neither boy protesting, and he sends a smirk Moira's way, as if to say, 'See? I can be good when I want to be.'

She shakes her head and walks away, off to check on Charles and Darwin in their rooms.

Meanwhile, Alex is slowly releasing Hank and ruffling his hair, and then ruffling Sean's when he releases him as well. "You two know that I love you, right?" Alex whispers, tone low and serious, his facial expression heartbreaking. He wraps his arms back around himself, tears pricking his eyes. These are the same tears he refuses to ever let fall from his eyelids, not since The Fire, the one that ruined him and landed him here. "I love you… Scott, Gabriel," my mumbles.

Havok suddenly he gets up and walks back to his room, his non-padded room full of merciless, insecure surfaces.

Sean hiccups, and he cries for Alex, since Alex refuses to. Havok is the essence of _havoc_ in a meaty shell; he is destruction in his own eyes. He sees himself as a liability to others. And Sean knows this. Sean has seen it, has felt it; he's seen and felt how, sometimes, Alex falls too deeply into the illusion that his Beast and his Banshee are actually his Gabriel and his Scott, that these two patients are instead two brothers, the ones Alex lost in The Fire.

And sometimes, the times that he remembers that they aren't his brothers, Alex still acts a little too protective, a little too loving to be merely friendship. It confuses Sean, but he doesn't make a fuss about it. He doesn't want to protest the affection and risk hurting Alex's feelings.

Hank growls lowly, curling into himself to keep from lashing out, his muscles clenching with the effort of letting his ugliness show.

He tells Sean under his breath in a cruel, uneven tone that doesn't suit his otherwise sweet, soft tones, "I hate those arsonists. A monster knows other monsters, and those men were monsters. We have pyromaniacs in here, ones like Johnny, but none like those men. I'm glad they're in prison. They hurt Alex so badly."

He wrenches his eyes shut, and Sean soundlessly slides into the empty chair between them – the plastic still warm with Alex's body heat – and soothingly strokes Hank's forearm, the one closest to him. He makes a weak, vague humming sound in comfort, to keep Hank calm. _This is more than any of the therapists and nurses ever do for the patients,_ Sean thinks. _We help each other more than they do, in a lot of ways. Charles is practically my father, even though he's not much older than me. We just care and understand each other more, when we aren't too far gone on meds or inside our own heads._

Hank's head snaps upward, his eyes meeting Sean's. He states intensely, voice cracking: "How could they think it funny to go around lighting buildings on fire, including Alex's house? His entire family _perished_! His brothers tried to escape, and Alex tried to go back in for them, but he couldn't save them. He couldn't save them, just like I couldn't save my sister. And that guilt… Alex and I know it so much it hurts. It really hurts, Banshee."

Sean nods, eyes leaking more tears. He knows Alex's and Hank's stories well, because Charles shares the stories, the ones he either picks up with his powers or from a folder in the File Room, none of them are sure nor care, but they are grateful that they know about each other, because there is solace in getting the full story, the story that the person themselves doesn't like to speak of because it was too traumatizing to live through, let alone retell.

Hank told his younger sister to wait in the car while he went into the store. It was only for a few minutes, and it was a small mini-mart near a gas station. It was for a short list: a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, some eggs, a box of cereal, and a packet of period pads for their mother.

Hank had left the keys in the ignition so that his little sister could listen to the radio, and the motor was running so that she could have air-conditioning. It was a hot summer, sun blazing overhead, humidity index high. She tried climbing into the front seat to control things better, change the station to music during the commercials, but her foot hit the gear-shifting stick, and the car went from "park" to "drive." The vehicle rolled downhill in the parking lot, gaining speed as it went. She screamed. She hardly had time to think, and she was too youn g to know how to brake the car.

It crashed into a streetlamp pole, the one that listed gas prices, at the bottom of the hill. She flung forward, hit the windshield, and died instantly, the blood loss and brain damage too much for her to last very long. Hank blames himself for it. He calls himself a monster for being sop stupid, for not knowing, and for only walking out of the store right as the car was racing down the parking lot's slant.

He had dropped the groceries, eggs and milk splattering and spoiling on impact, and he had chased the car. But of course he couldn't catch up to it or do anything. He was yards away still when it collided. He had seen her blood spill down the hood and dribble onto the pavement. He had heard her cries before the squelch of metal, even through the closed glass windows.

And Hank was never the same. He felt like his parents hated him for "letting" her die. They admitted him to Schmidt's Home for the Mentally Unstable about three months following the incident, because he wasn't acting like himself.

He still doesn't act like himself, even two years later. And Sean is sympathetic to that, because Sean himself hasn't spoken a word in almost as long.

Sean sighs, and Hank sighs, and they calm themselves down by getting up and walking around. The brunet retreats to his favorite corner of the room to sink against the wall, sagging onto the floor between the walls, where they meet. Sean returns to his ward.

-0-

In his room, Havok punches the walls a few times, hissing in pain as the pale, chalky red of the sealed drywall scrapes his knuckles. He could have painted it a lot more evenly than they did. But he still loves the red shade; it reminds him of laser beams and barns, an odd combination, but one that makes him smile, because the mix makes him think of flying saucers in cornfields.

The blond boy still remembers it. As much as he tries to shove the memories away, and often succeeds in tucking them into the back pockets of his mind to preserve his belief that his brothers are still out there and alive and waiting for him to be well and see them again, he still gets glimpses sometimes, fragments in his nightmares, of that night, the night of The Fire.

He can still see in those nightmares the memories he refuses to accept: the moments that his brothers, Scott and Gabriel Summers, reached through the broken window in the subbasement, coughing for air, gasping for words, weeping for help, wounded and desperate.

("Get the police, Alex! –Or the neighbors! Please, run, Alex; we can't last much longer…")

And he remembers pivoting, the stench of burning _everything_ in his nostrils. But as soon as he was halfway to the next house, he heard it: the second story collapsing onto the bottom level.

Alex had raced back, but all he saw was a mangled, burnt arm sprouting from the window, and all he heard was a brief yell as piercing as a bullet through Alex's skull. The combined crescendo of the Hellish harmony of his brother's voices in death. The sound still haunts his sleep, because he knew that he hadn't been able to get help in time, and he had been the only one fast enough to wake form his usually light sleep and get out of the smoking, scorching house.

Havok breathes harshly through his clenched teeth, the broken memories disappearing once again. And then he's back in his nicer state of mind where his brothers never died, where Sean and Hank are the temporary replacements until he can hold Scott and Gabriel again.

-0-

"Here's more paper, Charles. And Erik would like to see you. He has limited time before he has to return to solitary. Can I send him in?" Moira says, setting down a fresh pack of plastic-wrapped paper and placing her hands on her hips as her eyes quickly scan the mint green of the room, eyes never failing to linger over the tally marks in front of the small desk.

"Oh, of course! Send him in, dear; _please_ send him in. You never need to ask. I will always enjoy having his company," the brunet man replies with an eager quirk to his lips.

Moira smiles in return, nodding, and leaves. She murmurs, "Here he is," moments later, and beyond the slotted, windowed door, Charles spies Erik lingering there. His heart beats faster under his skin, tiny electrical shocks raising the hairs on his arms and legs. Moira severs the feeling with one last sentence: "I'll give you two an hour."

The taller, gruffer man enters in that moment. As the door locks behind him, Moira's heels click in the opposite direction, growing fainter with each passing second.

And then it is the silence of those words unspoken, and Charles relaxes into it, his back reclining in his chair. He laces his hands together and hums to himself. Then, "Aren't you going to have a seat, my friend?" Charles inquires casually, gesturing to his bed.

Erik takes a few steps from the door, toward Charles in his little swivel chair between the desk and bed. He stands before him. He has an unreadable expression on his face, more-so than usual. His breaths come in and slip out shallowly through his nose.

Charles cocks his head. "Is something the matter?"

The taller brunet still doesn't speak. Instead, he kneels down, takes one of Charles' hands, brushes the knuckles across his parting lips, and finally murmurs, "I had a dream, and I remembered what I did to you. And I wanted to say what I couldn't before: 'Forgive me.'" His gaze is smoldering as he slowly brings his eyes up to meet Charles', and Charles is left breathless. Erik carries on, "And I wanted to say that I believe you, that what I dream was real at one point. And I wanted to tell you," he adds as he stands before Charles, "That I plan on breaking out of here, and I wanted to know if you would come with me."

Charles is slow to smile, but once he does, it is a shit-eating grin if there ever was one, and it's startling to see on his innocent, kind-hearted face. "Oh, Erik; I have been planning an escape for months now. Of course I will come with you; we can only do this together. I have been waiting for you, after all."

He smiles broader, sliding over to his mattress and lifting it to reveal his pocket in the coverings, pulling out paper rats from springs.

Erik tilts his head at the action, leaning forward to get a better view. He licks his lips and vaguely can smell Charles' subtle scent where he peers over the seated man's shoulder.

The former telepath lifts his most recent rat and unfolds it. "Here, let me show you…"


	5. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian has plans. Big, brilliant plans.

Sebastian has plans. Big, brilliant plans.

He plans on being the single most impressive warden this mental institute has ever witnessed. He plans on having the largest number of recovered, rehabilitated patients since the asylum was established. He plans on making examples out of his worst patients, like James Howlett and Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier. He plans on being the most powerful warden, respected by doctors and therapists the world over. He plans on being written in history books as a revolutionary for the insane of all degrees, from the clinically depressed, suicidal, criminally troubled, delusional, obsessive and delinquent. Every sort there is, he plans on reforming all of them, and he intends on being remembered forever with a record that cannot be beat.

But Sebastian Shaw's plans, as self-important and assisting as they are, aren't entirely bad in the long run. They can potentially be if he rushes patients out of the institute before they are fully returned to sanity, but he doesn't care about all that. In the end, his ideas are generally positive for the public, and that's good enough to keep his conscious clean and clear as he fucks with minds in his success' favor.

(He sees his controlling iron fist on this asylum as a good-intentioned, fatherly nudge in the right direction.)

However, Charles Xavier is a tricky one. He lives so completely in his warped lie, and he is so manipulative with others, that he has convinced many that they are part of his woven tale, and because of this, he is the toughest nut to crack. But if Shaw can do it, if he can shatter the illusion Charles has fabricated about mutants and other lives and nicknames and false unity, he can revert the others to their raw selves and rebuild them.

Charles is crafty, though. And the warden knows it all too well. He's been working with Charles for years, going through psychologists and psychiatrists like tissue paper. Charles Xavier is… How can Sebastian describe him?

_Charles fucking Xavier_ has the uncanny ability to talk sense into the insensible, and make people believe anything he tells them – even the thickest of lies – with his sweet, open, honest face.

And yet, despite his masterful trickery, Charles is compassionate and understanding, and he cares for others, even though he is capable of holding vast amounts of hatred and fury deep within him. Essentially, it depends on whom he's up against.

Shaw has tried for _ages_ to find the right person to go up against Charles to break him of his psychic walls (walls so delicately established to keep out reality and help him thrive in his fictional world of mutated humans and a past that never existed).

Shaw sighs and shakes his head. So many patients claim to have dreams that relate to Charles' tale, but in the warden's mind, this is all a twist in their heads and Charles' that makes it all feel more realistic, and it's all based on Charles' stories, the ones he writes. It's all rather tragic, really. And it's so difficult to dissect.

He turns in his office, pacing the length once again as he occasionally peers out the window.

"What to do, what to do…?" he murmurs to himself.

Emma knocks on his door and lets herself inside without a word from him. "Hello, Sebastian," she smiles with sickening sweetness as sharply chilling as her last name. "If you talk to yourself like that, we might have to lock you up with the others, and give you a number of your own."

The warden laughs heartily and walks over to her, bringing arms around her waist to pull her close. He plants a firm kiss on her lips, one she fervently gives back to him, her arms locking around his neck and tugging on his sandy-colored hair as his tongue delves into her pristine mouth.

When they part, Shaw hums playfully. "Never has a nurse been as sweet as you, my lovely. How naughty you are, breaking office code." He _boops_ the blonde's nose with a fingertip and chuckles again. "Now then, onto other, more pressing matters," he says, stepping away from her and drumming his fingers for a second on his desk as he begins pacing once again. "What is the schedule for today?"

She drops it onto his desk, a sassy quirk of her mouth and brows set on her sleek, radiant face. She tosses her blonde locks and keeps her long lashes trained downward as she skims over the document. "Patients from both A- and B-Wing have their visitations and Outside hours and vacations marked down on the first two sheets, front to back; and then there is a matter of the C- and D-Wing patients, whom all have therapy. Today is the trial run of group therapy for the D-Wing, a privilege previously denied to them. Moira and I will be handing out medicine an hour prior, giving it time to kick in and keep them docile throughout the group therapy. We have Dr. Stryker leading it. His son William will be replacing him once he retires, I've heard," she adds at the end, smirking. "Anyhow, that's the agenda for the day. Would you like to personally see to the group session?"

"I would, thank you," Shaw grins in that eerily intimidating way he does. He scoops up the documents and sifts through them for a moment, eyes flying across written and typed words alike. Then he tidies up the pages with a few taps on his desk to put them back into perfect order, all lined up and straight-edged. "Shall you go and medicate them soon, then?"

"Going, sir," she smirks, and just like that, Emma darts out of the room, her pointed, white shoes echoing down the hall as loudly as a high school marching band.

The sound makes Sebastian smile to himself, teeth non-exposed, as he ceases his pacing and opts to gracefully settle into his large desk chair of lustrous leather. He sweeps a few stray dust particles from his wooden desk's surface, and puts up his feet.

Things will go according to plan soon enough. Group therapy should help kick-start his plans, because what better way to snap Xavier from his delusion than to make him see in a group of his peers how ludicrous his story seems?

-0-

Raven is let into Charles' room when Moira comes to hand him his pills through the slot. She begs and pleads, and finally, Moira gives in and unlocks the door. The petite blonde dashes in, and immediately buries her head into Charles' shoulder.

Moira looks on this for a moment, slight jealousy at how effortlessly Raven Darkholme can be intimate with Charles without him protesting in the least. Moira knows it's wrong, but she's half in love with Charles Xavier. He is charming for someone who is supposedly off his rocker, and she knows common sense and examples throughout the ages dictate that nurse/patient relationships are cliché, forbidden, and only end in tragedy of some sort, but she can't help herself. And any girl she sees near him… it makes her stomach twist just that much tighter.

So the auburn-haired nurse twirls around, walking from the door and back down the hall, leaving the pair to themselves.

Inside Charles' ward, he dumps his pills down an air vent and hears them happily bounce down the metal. He stands and circles his chair to hold Raven properly. "Ah, Little Sister. Come, tell me what's wrong, my dear."

Raven clings to the fabric of his standard-issue D-Wing pajamas and heaves a sob without tears present. Her hair is askew more than usual, lightly greasy at the roots, and hanging down in blonde curtains over half of her face. Charles' face softens even further as he lifts her head, her jaw in his hands, and brushes a thumb over her cheeks, her forehead, and sweeps back the wavy, gnarled hair to tuck behind her ear as he peers into her eyes.

"Oh, Raven. Why are you looking at me like that? Please, say something."

Raven suddenly stands erect and smacks his hands from her face. She spits at him, "Don't you dare!" and she is not Raven. Not anymore. This is Mystique, full and true, not just a nickname. This is her main alter-ego, the one on her profile in her folder from the File Room. This is the Mystique that developed in the back of poor, young Raven's mind and took over long enough to make Raven coat her hands and clothing with her own parents' blood, soaking to her bones and making the fragile, weak personality of what's left of the original Raven even more brittle.

"Don't I dare _what_?" Charles retorts calmly, his voice as cool as a brook in the woods. "Please, Mystique, speak clearly to me."

"Don't you _dare_ call me by that weakling human's name. I am not her, and she is not me. I came to you in her guise because I needed to fool Nurse MacTaggert, even as she hung around outside the door for a bit just now," she sneers, and if Charles doesn't blink for a long enough period of time, she almost appears blue with red hair. Almost. She says composedly, "There is something I need to discuss with you."

"Oh?" Charles remarks, intrigued. He leans forward, hands being placed behind his back where he stands. "Do tell."

Mystique smirks and walks around his bed to the other side of his tiny room, her hands plucking idly at her hanging nightdress. He can tell that she wishes to be free of it, to be nude and _herself._ She informs him, "Today they are going to do group therapy. It's a trial run, you might say, and Raven was terrified of it, to be forced to speak about herself and her past, but I think it will be a glorious opportunity to boast about my doings. I was wondering if you might help me; use your telepathy, as fleeting as it is since it's only a remnant of your former life, to help me remain while Raven seeks refuge in my mind just long enough for the session to take place?"

"Hmm," Charles ponders, leaning back on one foot as he places a hand over his stubbled chin (they haven't let him shave in a few days). He peers upward, nodding. "All right, I will. Just don't cause too much trouble, Mystique. And please, don't get horny and flirty on Azazel again; the poor man can hardly handle your advances with how strong they are."

"Fat chance. If I want to stir up the dog shit or come on to Azazel, I _will._ You can't stop me, _Big Brother,_ " she adds sarcastically, running her hands through her hair to push it back, keeping it fully out of her face as she tears a strip of cloth from her sleeve and uses it to tie her hair in place.

He chuckles a bit. "I suppose you're right." He invades her personal space, lifting his hands to place at her temples and his. "Now… relax for a moment, and let me into your head."

-0-

As soon as Dr. Stryker sits down, Logan lets out a snarl and moves to leave the circle of the forty-or-so patients, all from the combined wings of C and D. His son is accompanying him, as it turns out, because there wound up being more patients than expected who were deemed ready for this activity. It's nearly every patient in both wings, about twenty per wing. The circle takes up the entire Roaming Room, deliberately repositioned today for this sole purpose.

"Shall we begin with introductions?" Stryker senior begins, lifting off as steadily and observably as a rocket leaving the atmosphere. His voice is old but loud, and everyone in the circle silences their murmurs.

As they go around the circle, everyone in C-Wing says their normal names. But then there is the majority (although nowhere near entirety) of D-Wing whom says their code names instead. Charles introduces himself as 'Professor X' and nothing else. Erik and the others follow his lead.

Stryker junior marks it down on his clipboard. Logan continues to growl, especially in the younger doctor's presence. He hates him for no reason, seemingly, but everyone personally associated with Charles Xavier knows that it's in fact because of the memories of Logan's former life as Wolverine that is making him react this way toward the younger doctor.

The session carries onward.

While some patients refuse to say anything about their past or share their insecurities or confess to their peers anything remotely painful, others open up eagerly (and some with carefree or even _sinister_ grins).

(Some like Mystique.)

The split-personalitied blonde stands, a whorish sway in her hips as she shifts foot-to-foot, breasts purposely pressing together to form distracting cleavage in the V of her allotted, standard-female-patients' nightdress. She has a bored, prided tone to her voice as she recounts her bloody tale.

Mystique licks her lips and speaks: "I was once called 'Raven.' My parents were dumb creatures to choose such a lonely blackbird as my name. A symbol of death, if Edgar Allan Poe's poem means anything. Anyway, I've been told in description of Raven's multiple personalities, but none of the others really matter. They were born of temporarily necessity, back when Raven was dating too many boys in high school, boys upon boys of all different social clusters and personality types.

"She acted differently with each one; acted like a druggie with the Bohemian boys; acted like an athlete with the jocks; acted like a poet with the thespians, and so on. And all of it was for fun. Ooh, so much fun," she chuckles darkly, and uncrosses her arms, spinning for a moment. "We slept with them all. Some of them were really fantastic in bed, and others had to be taught how to be.

"But did Mommy and Daddy like it? Nope, not one bit; they always ignored Raven, and she always wanted to grab their attention. She tried being a perfect student, getting all A's; but that didn't impress them. She tried being a bad girl, getting detentions and, finally, a suspension; but that didn't faze them in the least. So she did the last thing she could do to earn their love or hatred, as long as they paid attention to her: she lost her virginity and didn't stop.

"And that's when her parents noticed, you see. That's when they started to realize that they were losing the little girl they always kept at a distance, and that she was different people whenever she pleased to be, depending on who she dated. And then they got angry. Really, really angry," Mystique says, and she loses a tad of her bravado as her voice wavers. But she picks up and continues, "And they didn't accept her. They always thought she was odd, and once they began to hate her, she realized that she only wanted their love all along, not just their attention. But she could never have their love. So she did the best that she could do: she killed them. Their necks snapped as easily as dried sticks. Their blood tasted good when it spattered on us as we tore them up to hide the bodies later on.

"But she wasn't really 'Raven' when she killed them. She was me. I did all of it. And I'm only sad I got caught."

And then Mystique sits down, smirking and blinking back tears, and she smoothes her nightdress over her thighs, spying Azazel on the other side of the room, guarding the doors, watching with his fresh blue eyes as she makes the movement, and she can see, too, the shudder of light disgust at her words, barely masked by his attraction toward her.

Mr. Stryker senior clears his throat uncomfortably. He checks her file in his lap. It says that all f what she told is true, not embellished nearly at all, and he frowns at it. In the corner, it states in the file, _Slow to warm with others, ever since she was an infant, according to other known relatives. Darkholme shows signs of severe anti-social illness, acting unfeeling to everyone, save for the few people who openly accept and care for her. Only then does she warm herself to them. Witnessed examples of said people: Xavier, Charles; Azazel, an employee._ And then, most recently scribbled in a different colored pen: _Lehnsherr, Erik._

He sets down the file and listens as another patient shyly and distractedly recounts their own history that has landed them here. They are all more remorseful than Raven; but then again, Attila the Hun would be more remorseful than her.

But when they come to Charles, he smiles softly, hand secretively under his seat to clasp Erik's beside him. He says serenely, "I have no story to tell. Mine is so dull and concise. Wouldn't you rather hear about my original life instead?"

And from there, he talks about being a rich boy in a castle of a home, about having a busy-bee socialite mother, about having a deceased father and a stepfather he comments little about, and of how he could read minds and project into them. He speaks about being mutant, about going to Oxford, about meeting Erik when he saved him from drowning, about having Raven as a sister, about meeting Alex and Hank and Darwin and Sean and yes, even Logan, while on a hunt for other mutants under CIA orders, and speaks about Shaw – the warden himself, everyone else knows – dying by Erik's hand one day during he Cuban Missile Crisis, and of being condemned to live in a wheelchair after an incident Moira and Erik cause involving a stray bullet and magnetic, metalbending abilities.

And once he's finished with the summary, he's spent nearly about as much time as Mystique had while talking, and soon, the circle is moving on to the next patient.

No one says a word about Xavier's story. None of them really have to say a thing. But the two Strykers exchange glances when they look over his actual history in his file, and say nothing themselves as they listen to the next person talk.

Lensherr doesn't open his mouth about why he's here. He only knows that he blames Sebastian Shaw for being imprisoned in this asylum, and he wishes to get revenge on the warden, because all Erik can think of is how he is miserable here, and Shaw is the leader of this miserable place, so he must be punished, yes?

Erik squeezes Charles' hand tighter, blunt nails pressing red half-moons into Charles' skin. Charles sucks in air and squeezes back not nearly as tightly. He wants nothing more than to have this session done and over with so that he might sneak the kiss he's been dying to plant on Erik's lips since he saw him again, even though, at the time, a shank had been pressed to his throat.

The former metalbender is all Charles has been able to think about since composing the opener of his memoir, and after all of the gloom in this circle, Charles could use the pick-me-up.

It's an awkward group therapy session, and once it concludes – Shaw having witnessed it all from behind closed doors, the same Azazel had been standing in front of – the warden decides not to try it again. Because even hearing the truth still made Charles lie about the lives of just over half of the D-Wing. And worse yet, one or two others continued the lie by skipping their own tales as well to essentially retell Charles' fiction as their own history.

The warden scowls and punches the door before walking off. And if anyone in the modified Roaming Room heard the thud, they pretend to have misheard the noise.


	6. I Remembered That I Love You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaw taps his left temple with two fingers. "Now you're thinking, sweetheart," he grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hark! Vague sex ahead.

"How are you today, Angel?" Darwin asks as he leans over the cafeteria line, smiling lazily. He checks around himself, and once he deems it safe, he hops over the counter to be on the same side as her.

She laughs and shakes her head, smacking him with a towel from her shoulder. "Armando, don't! You'll get knocked down from the C-Wing for doing this as often as you do," she scolds, and there's a smirk on her plump, glossed lips. She leans forward and picks out something from his short, tight curls. "But I'm fine, hon. I'm always fine. At least I'm getting paid, now. Remember when I was only a volunteer hand?"

He nods, smiles. "Yeah, I remember. But please, call me Darwin. Everyone else does, even the nurses and guards. It's really stuck, you know. It was always a nickname of mine anyhow, since I chose it."

Angel makes an offhand clearing in her throat, and moves to do some of her work, stirring a pot and dishing out something to a patient in line. "Why do you talk to me every day, Darwin? It must get boring. I never have much to say, really."

"Maybe not, but I like being around you," he replies softly. "Some people think you were a stripper before this, or a hooker. But I don't believe any of that. You're a good girl, Angel. A sweet girl."

She huffs an ironic, sarcastic laugh. "Oh hoho, yeah, a real good girl who dropped out of high school, couldn't get into college because of it, did odd jobs, and met one too many boys who treated her like trash, and so, acting crazy, she decided to volunteer and finally apply for a job at a place with even crazier people to make her feel like she's actually worth something," Angel rants, uncharacteristically in third person, with an added snort at the end to scoff at herself. She shakes her head, wipes some sweat from under her poofed bangs, and sighs loudly. She looks at Darwin, and his face is like that of an old dog's: empathetic, worried, not fully comprehending.

He steps forward and takes her face in his hands, brushing back her dense, dark hair and lightly touching a finger to her beauty mark off-center from her mouth. "You _are_ a good girl, Angel. I can tell. You've just made some mistakes, some wrong choices, but that's like the rest of us, so it's nothing to feel guilty for. You just need to do the right thing whenever you can."

She nods, sniffling, and easily falls into his arms. He holds her, smiling lightly to himself, and she retracts for just a few seconds to kiss him surprisingly gently, in spite of her sassy personality. Darwin strokes her hair, kisses her in a similarly chaste fashion, and then leaves the kitchen, entering the cafeteria and following its doors out into the hub of the institution. He doesn't want to get caught where he shouldn't be, winding up getting sent from the C- to the D-Wing, unable to slip as easily into the cafeteria.

Alone again with the other cafeteria hands, Angel dabs under her eyes, careful not to smudge her heavy, dark makeup, and then attends to her work in the kitchen.

-0-

"Why won't you allow another group therapy session for the C- and D-Wings?" Nurse MacTaggert requests to know with a frown set in place over her eyes. She folds her arms tightly over her small chest and pops a hip in her pencil-skirted white scrubs.

Sebastian doesn't respond directly at first. Instead, he gestures a hand and faces her, saying nonchalantly, "Did you know that we released another two patients this morning? Fully stable and sane. Both victims of scarring trauma."

"What was wrong with them?" Moira murmurs, playing along cautiously. She wouldn't know any of the recovering patients above the D-Wing. She seats herself in a suede armchair near his desk as she watches him pace a few steps forward, then a few steps back, over and over at the side of his desk.

The warden nods once, dejectedly, as he sweeps a hand across the room. "One was serially raped, and the other was the mother of one too many miscarriages. The latter was such a sad woman, you know. Not one of her pregnancies lasted full-term. She lost thirteen babies. _Thirteen,_ Miss MacTaggert. The raped gal was somehow not as mentally severe of a case, and it makes you wonder: why not? In theory, rape is worse than miscarriage. And yet, depending on the person, and the situation, and the strength of will and psyche, one person can break sooner or recover faster than another of any given situation."

Moira swallows thickly. "…You're thinking of someone in particular from the C and D therapy from the other day, aren't you?"

Shaw taps his left temple with two fingers. "Now you're thinking, sweetheart," he grins. He takes a step back, pacing paused, and opens up his arms, palms out. "I run a good business, don't I? People get helped here. We're one of the few clean, gentle, and recommended psych wards. We help so many. But there are a few here that I fear will never change. There are some that have hope if I can separate them from those who will never improve."

Moira's eyes narrow and she stands unexpectedly, her teeny fists clenched. "Raven and Charles. You're referring to Raven and Charles. And your precious little miracle-waiting-to-happen, Erik Lehnsherr. I know you are, Mr. Shaw; and I can't say I agree with you. Charles is a wonderful man. All he needs is the right push to open up like Raven had during group therapy. Already she's doing much better; she's down to two personalities, herself and 'Mystique.' It's a great thing, in comparison to before, and I think Charles helped her get there. Encouraged her."

There is an instant change in the man's face as he glares at his employee, voice altering on a dime to become as foreboding and triggered as a bear trap covered scarcely by leaves. "No, he _didn't!_ I will not have him take credit for what this center is doing." Sebastian clicks his tongue in annoyance. "He's playing mind-games, Moira. He wants her to trust him until she follows him more dutifully than a loyal family pet. He's the worst of them all. Mark my words, Moira, he is a time-bomb _tick-tick-_ ticking away, ready to explode at any moment and wreak havoc on all that I've done!"

Moira spits back, "I can't believe you have so little faith in your own patient! Everyone has a hopeful shot at recovery, Shaw! You have only to find the proper way to go about reaching it for each person. It's the same basic principle for teaching methods in a school, or reform methods for addicts." Her voice holds conviction, her beliefs overwhelmingly deep-seated.

And that's when it clicks in Sebastian's mind. He smiles in that frightening way he does when he knows he has the upper hand, and is up against someone opposing him. "You're in love with the Xavier boy, aren't you, MacTaggert? I might have to reassign you to a different wing because of it. But I won't fire you; you're too handy of a nurse to be rid of. So, yes, I believe I'll put you in the B-Wing on the other side. That should do nicely." He waves a hand, facing the other way. "You're dismissed."

Moira bites her cheek. She swallows down words that she wants to shout at him, the withheld profanities and outrages forming a knot in her throat, choking off part of her air. She struggles to breathe, adrenaline flooding her chest, tightening it. She nods deftly, spins on her heel, and storms out of the office.

Shaw smiles smugly after her. He feels so very satisfied with this. His plans will be reached yet; he'll get Moira away from Charles so that she can't assist him further – he knows it was her who stirred all that trouble a short while ago, when Alex was freed without permission, and Charles visited Erik – and then he will break apart the growing friendship between Erik and Charles, and the already strong relationship between Raven and Charles.

He will isolate Charles Xavier, rehabilitate and release Raven and Erik, and slowly work on doing the same to the others as well. That way, in the long run, Shaw will succeed in his goals and Charles will cease to be a problem patient in Shaw's flawless institute.

-0-

"Professor, Professor!" Hank says in alarm, running up to Charles as soon as he's visible down the corridor from his room that leads into the Roaming Room. He pushes past the doors and drags Charles into the room. He's less jumpy when it comes to physical contact lately, and Charles silently celebrates the progress.

"What is it, Beast?" he asks tranquilly, taking Hank's hands into his own and leading the boy to some chairs. He sits them both down and locks their different-hued blue gazes together. "You seem so distressed."

"It's Nurse MacTaggert! She's been put in another wing. Do you think it's because they don't want me to hurt her like I did my sister?" he utters in a hushed, culpable tone.

"What? No, dear boy, of course not! That is not it at all. What did I tell you time and time again? You are not as dangerous as you think, Beast. And as for Moira… I suspect this is my doing instead. The warden isn't very fond of me, and she is a good friend, and he doesn't want me to be spoiled. But that's fair, isn't it? So this isn't so tragic. We'll pull through," he comforts, rubbing Hank's cold hands warm again, and smiling reassuringly at the teen.

"Okay, Professor X; if you say so. I trust you," Hank murmurs, and pulls away. He smiles a half-smile and glances around the room. "Are they going to let Havok out of his room? He's slightly more comfortable with it, now. He doesn't mind not being in solitary. He told me so."

"That's wonderful, Beast," Charles replies, and he genuinely means it. It's great to hear how others are doing. Charles likes to think the subtle improvements are due to their family being whole once more, like it had been in their alternate reality – or, rather, their joint past. He licks his lips (always chalky and dry from side-effects of medication) and asks, "Do you know if they're finally releasing Erik from solitary confinement?"

Hank nods. "Yeah. He should be coming out of the padded pit soon. I heard the guards talking." He cocks his head, a distant smile on his dreamy-expressioned face. "Isn't it funny that the two people we like best keep acting out and getting locked up in the Quiet Room?" he inquires, referring to solitary by its rarely used, patient-slang term.

Charles blinks at that, his face feeling a little feverish. It mist be the meds. He shakes his head. "No, it isn't funny at all. The coincidence leaves the pair of us missing them immensely."

"Oh. That's true," Hank deflates, sighing. He curls into his usual ball position and glances into space, feeling his eyes cross after a short while. He blinks them back into focus and spies Sean entering the room. "Banshee!" he calls out.

The redheaded teen smiles lopsidedly and moves to join the pair on the chairs in the center. He looks around, and then does a sign with his hands. It isn't sign language per se; it's closer to his own nonverbal language. It's the first two fingers of each hand plus his thumbs of each in interlocking circles, the rings alternating fingers of each hand down the middle. They're meant to be hoops to describe Alex. And when he tilts his head afterward, Hank and Charles understand that it's a question.

"He should be here shortly," Charles answers as Sean takes the seat beside the twenty-five-year-old. "You and Hank can both see him then."

Sean nods, shrugging, and drums his hands on his thighs, tapping and thumping and slapping while he waits for the blond boy to show up.

Charles pushes himself out of his chair and heads for the doors leading to the main hall of the D-Wing. No guard stops him. Once he's beyond the doors, whistling to himself faintly and peering around at the walls and pipes, all white and grey. He passes Alex along the way, sending the younger boy a greeting.

"Havok! There you are, my boy. Banshee and Beast are waiting for you; don't keep them waiting!"

Alex actually chuckles. "Yeah, I figured they would be. Thanks, Professor; I'll go see them right now. I miss them."

"And they you, so you better hurry!" Charles chuckles, walking backwards as he speaks to the blond.

Alex gives a partial salute, and turns to head into the room.

Sure enough, Sean and Hank are there, waving Alex over and parting to make room for him in the seat between them, where Charles had once been. Alex smiles tiredly, once again having been kept up with dull nightmares he can't quite recall. He sits down, and Hank immediately starts talking quickly in the nervous, stuttering way he does. On Alex's other side, Sean traces invisible patterns in a ticklish manner on Alex's left hand and up the underside of his forearm.

Havok is so very warmed by these two. His smile grows fond, and on impulse, he tweaks Hank's nose before kissing it, and then turns to Sean and runs a finger over his freckles before giving him a kiss on the cheek.

The two other boys think almost nothing of the usually violent boy's bursts of affection. They react as normally as possible so not to set Alex off (the boy being hereditarily bipolar). And then they look up at one of the single, old TV screens suspended in the corner of one part of the Roaming Room and watch the fishing show playing on it, making idle comments, Sean voicing his with hand signs of his own creation or variation paried with shakes and nods.

They are a happy bunch. It's a shame that Shaw is lingering just outside the Roaming Room doors that lead to the hub of the facility. He shakes his head, pushing his reading glasses up his nose as he walks away.

Those three will be easier targets than tackling Raven or Erik for the time being. Thus, they will be the first Sebastian will work extra hard with to reform and return to sanity to help lessen Charles' allies and also help increase Shaw's record count of released patients.

Perfect.

"Copy into the computers that Hank McCoy, Sean Cassidy, and Alex Summers are all being moved up to the C-Wing for recent good behavior and notable enough improvement in mental stability," Shaw relays to the main receptionist who handles the files of the File Room, her office located within the main entrance. "Have their new rooms beside one another, if possible."

"Yes, sir," she responds with a pop of her chewing gum. Sebastian briefly smells sugary, candy-version watermelon, and then retreats to his office.

The warden smirks. "Also: have the effect take place tomorrow. We will transfer their wards and have their old rooms, if off-color, repainted white. Thank you."

-0-

Charles is so distracted after Alex passing by he that doesn't quite notice how Erik is turning the corner, followed by Emma Frost, until it's nearly too late.

They stop before one another, Erik reacting first, and Charles nearly bumping into him. Emma rolls her eyes and steps around the two to head for the Roaming Room. "Don't cause a ruckus," she venomously tosses at them over her shoulder as she walks away. "I'll have Janos keep an eye on you two." And with that, she slips through the double doors, out of sight.

Erik and Charles are quintessentially alone. They are surrounded on either side by doors leading into the wards of D-Wing patients, some occupying the space and actually not in the Roaming Room during this break for socializing. But the way they are, the way things appear when they are together; it's as if no one else (which isn't vital and close to them) exists, nor is relevant.

"Magneto," Charles breathes, and before he can get another word out, Erik grips him fiercely by the upper arms and crushes their lips together, groaning into the action.

Charles gives a returning sound of desire from the back of his throat, fingers clawing into whatever fabric he can reach where his arms are pinned to his sides from the elbow and up. Erik kisses him precisely the way he used to, intense (with emotion) and suffocating (with heat) and loving (with care) and unrefined (with cadence, like the messy first draft of a song).

When they part, the feverish feeling in Charles' face is swooping throughout his entire body in waves, and it feels as though the iron in his blood is boiling, and he wonders if Erik is to blame, even if he's using the fragments of his powers unconsciously.

He stares at his equal in wonder, and finally asks, "What brought this on, my friend?"

Erik runs a hand through his hair to fix it from its fallen, unkempt state. "I couldn't resist any longer, not after recalling how we were. I dreamt of it; you and I, together, two souls and bodies as one." He touches Charles' face and leans in, eyes closed, to press his forehead to the former telepath's, his nose lined up one nostril to the other on the side of Charles'. He breathes against Charles' mouth, one inhaling the other's exhale. Erik's lip trembles. He shivers deliciously, his hand on Charles' face curling around to grip Charles' thick hair. He whispers, "I remembered that I once loved you."

Their eyes open at the same time, and Charles stumbles backward. His eyes are wide, and Erik's are relaxed. They look at one another with something new, a spark hanging in the air as delicate as a snowflake, destined to either melt and fade or free further and land to adhere to its brethren.

The spark doesn't melt; it clings, the snowflake made of it sending a ripple of coolness through both young men's bodies.

They step closer again, and this time, Charles is the one to speak. Tears are dripping down his face, sliding languidly like molasses. He mutters hoarsely, "I thought you would never remember. But I'm so glad that you do; because, even after all this time, and even with this new circumstance, I still find myself in love with you."

Erik blesses Charles with one of his rare, bright smiles. Charles laughs joyously at the sight, and doesn't hesitate to reconnect their lips. "I came looking for you to see if you were being freed from your padded cell, but I'm glad that I found so much more."

Proclaimed and labeled as "mentally unstable" or "insane" or "mad" doesn't deter one of fleshly cravings, doesn't make one forget about the carnal nature of sexual deeds. So as the lovers are reunited in what is like the first time, they make sure to seal it like a promise to keep themselves as lovers, and make sure to find a way to preserve their feelings for one another.

Janos doesn't keep an eye on them, even as Emma instructs him to go down the hallway. He's too preoccupied with Azazel and his personal growing infatuation with the taller guard (even though he knows how Azazel feels about one of the pretty female patients).

And so, Erik and Charles are free to steal into an unlocked room and make love where they fall. They pay no mind to anyone who might hear or see them; they are far too lost in their own world, wrapped up in knots with one another, bodies meshing in pleasure so white-hot they can't think a single notion, their instincts too strong to overcome.

("God, Erik, yes, hah, ah –! There, right _there_ , moremoremore –!" "Hngh, oh, _fuck_ , Charles! You're so – I just –!" "Lovedyoumissedyouwantedyou –" "Closer, damn you, _get closer to me_ – Look at me, _touch_ me more–" "Erikerikerik – Nguh!" "Shit, shitshit – going to, t-to –!" "Don't stop, d-don't – oh _God_ –" "Hhn – _Ahhh._ ")

It lasts minutes or hours, they can't tell, but when they finally straighten and clean themselves and depart, fingers laced, Erik and Charles know that they are more of a force to be reckoned with, because they are now a single entity, not just two lost souls in a vast, pitiless place like this insane asylum.

And they know now as well that, in fully joining forces like this, they finally have the right means and motivations to get their plan set in motion, to have their goal placed in front of them:

They are going to round up the other former mutants and flee this claustrophobic building, acting as leaders to them, becoming a _family,_ one free to live the lives they are meant to have.


	7. Don't Leave Me Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Erik, please, calm yourself," Charles murmurs, wincing, "You're hurting me."

"Azazel~!" Raven exclaims one morning as she emerges from her room when the tall Russian unlocks her door. She wraps her scrawny arms around his torso and hugs him tightly. "I had a dream about you last night. It was so sweet! We were married and we had a son named Kurt. He was the most darling little thing. He had a tail like you but blue skin like me, and he had my eyes but your teleporting mutation. I loved him very much, and he looked up to you. And I loved you very much, too. It was a wonderful memory-dream, one I need to tell Charles about," she tells him as he blushes, prying her arms loose, and leads her out to the cafeteria for breakfast.

"That all sounds very interestingk," he murmurs. He's grown accustomed to her dreams, and Charles' stories related to them. He knows all about how he looks like a red devil with the same sky-blue eyes, and how, in her delusion, he is a mutated human who can teleport and possesses a tail. And he doesn't mind it, honestly; it is an interesting portrayal of him, and he can't say he disagrees with the devil bit. He has been in prison before, and for the time being, he is serving community service on probation, getting mildly paid as a guard to a different sort of asylum than the criminal, non-insane one he left.

"Ooh, do I smell waffles? Is it waffle day, Azazel? I love waffles. Especially with strawberries and Cool Whip," Raven hums, hanging on the older man's arm and giggling. She is definitely 'Raven' and nor 'Mystique' today, or at least for the moment, and it comes as a bit of a relief. Azazel prefers the gentler side of the blonde girl, the one that hadn't killed her family.

"Yes, it's waffle day. You should be movingk into the line if you want your food," he informs her, careful to slip his arm out of her grasp.

"I am, I am!" she says happily. She takes a few steps forward, but turns back around to ask, "Will you eat breakfast with me, Azazel? I would love it if you ate some waffles with me. You like yours with blueberries and maple syrup, right? I'll get you a plate! – _Pleeeease,_ Azazel?" and Raven actually _pouts,_ her pink bottom lip puffing out and her hands clasped in front of her chest.

He sighs, his face softening. "Gah, sure. I cannot be refusing that face."

"Yay!" she celebrates, doing a small dance before skipping off into the cafeteria line. She asks for the fruity plates of waffles, two waffles per plate, and chats idly with Angel as the Latina dishes it out. When Raven returns, she's sitting down at a small table and gesturing before her, signaling Azazel over to come sit.

He does so with only a second's worth of hesitation. Guards aren't supposed to get attached to the patients. They are supposed to keep the patients from escaping or lashing out. They are meant to, like the nurses, occasionally free a patient from their cell. And all guards are permitted to administer punishment or demotion either where they see fit or where the warden sees fit. But, Azazel knows with a slight wince as he slices a bite of waffle with the side of his fork, they aren't supposed to fall in love with one of the patients. It's a little twisted and masochistic, he thinks, to be in love with someone who can change personalities on a dime or forget about him or only use him for perks.

Still, he thinks to himself as he talks with Raven (trying to keep up with her topic-shifting babble that seems to jump to more places than he can count in a single minute), he loves this younger girl, despite her mental illness and despite their age difference. He loves her, and would do anything to protect her and help her on her road to mental health.

-0-

"We need a list, Erik. We need to know precisely what we're going to do; acting on instinct isn't going to aid us this time, not in a facility such as this," the former telepath claims, his words a whisper in Erik's ear where they are huddled close on a bench in the Roaming Room. But their eyes are not on one another, and not many of their allies are in the room at the moment. It's late, nearly lights-out hour.

"No, we only need to know the main factors: guards, nurses, warden, and hours. Breakfast hour, lunch hour, dinner hour. And all of the guard and nurse shift changes. All of which I already have partially memorized, because I study these things wherever I go," Erik replies, turning his face to whisper into Charles' ear in return.

"You're always so paranoid," Charles smiles, his breath like butterfly wings ghosting across Erik's neck. He shivers while Charles shakes with a chuckle. "It's no wonder you're trapped here like the rest of us."

Their voices are kept so carefully low that no one seems to hear the hisses of ends of whispers, and from the angle, their lips don't appear to be moving. Erik places a delicate kiss on Charles' earlobe before adding, "The only problem is the warden; he's unpredictable. He moved Havok, Banshee, and Beast to the C-Wing! We'll still see them in here, but for how much longer until they're in the B-Wing? He's planning something, Charles…"

"Again with the paranoia," Charles remarks, hiding his face in the crook of Erik's neck. His nose presses against Erik's throat, and his lips hover and buzz with speech just above Erik's collarbones through his standard-issue, washed-out, single-colored pajamas. "But you're right. I suspect as much as well. He is out to foil our plans, have the boys recover and transfer out before they can help us. But Erik, can you honestly wish them to stay behind? If they have a chance to be free, they should be free. I can't withhold them from moving on, if that's what –"

"It's not! Hank is less insecure, and Alex can live without solitary now, but Sean still isn't talking and all three of them are still trouble-cases. So why did he move them up? They aren't going to 'get better' anytime soon. And besides, there's nothing wrong with them! They shouldn't be here or get brainwashed here to begin with. They're _fine._ They could live in the outside world just as well as you or I could!" Erik counters, his whisper a sharp hiss of teeth into Charles' hair, his nails digging into Charles' forearm.

"Erik, please, calm yourself," Charles murmurs, wincing, "You're hurting me."

"Sorry," the former metalbender apologizes grumpily, his anger and hatred for the warden's doings lingering in his tone. He rubs over the sore spot to smooth out the minute pain. "But what should we do, Charles? If they're released, they're return to wherever they come from, and we'll never see them again. I want them to come with us."

"As do I," Charles sighs, leaning more fully into Erik's side on the bench. No one spares them a passing glance; some of the other patients are too zoned out on meds or too absorbed in blathering on to themselves to care, and the guards seem to glance the other way out of either polite respect at the intimacy or disgust (or discomfort) with the genders of the couple. Either way, it works for Charles, because this allows him to say and act however he pleases without having to resort to hiding away in a closet or his room.

"We need a plan, then. We can either frame them and get them demoted again, or we can get promoted ourselves," Erik grins sneakily. He tilts up Charles' face by his chin, cupping it between his thumb and curled forefinger, the pad of his thumb brushing over the barely noticeable cleft. "What do you say?"

"I couldn't possibly frame someone else, particularly someone I care about," Charles says with wide blue eyes.

"Just like you couldn't fire a gun at someone point-blank, let alone a friend?" Erik smirks, glasz eyes dark. It sends electricity through Charles' spine.

"Yes, just like that," Charles breathes. He shakes his head, freeing it from Erik's grasp. "Therefore, I think upping ourselves is the only option. From now on, my love, you and I will be perfect examples of patients. We will take our medications when told. We will refrain from cursing and other outbursts. We won't sneak out past lights-out by picking our locks. We will be role-models until they have no choice but to move us to the C-Wing, at _least_."

"Brilliant," Erik grins, unreservedly agreeing with this plan. He leans in and touches his forehead to Charles', one of his arms gripping Charles' hip.

Charles lowers his eyelids and lightly touches a fingertip to Erik's bottom lip, and he isn't surprised when Erik lifts a hand to grip Charles' palm and slip his finger past Erik's lips, Erik's tongue warm and slippery against Charles' skin. Charles bites back making a sound, because if the guards notice shenanigans like these, they will make the two separate. By _force_. Sexual acts – in any sense of the term, no matter how small – between patients is forbidden.

(But that didn't stop them before. They just have to make sure they aren't caught. Some meds make them horny anyway; it happens, too common to be bothered with, even if it's disapproved of.)

Erik sighs gruffly and grips Charles tighter, their upper lips brushing. "Dammit, Charles," he grinds out, rocking forward. "I _need_ you. Can't we sneak off somewhere? Can't we hold off being 'perfect patients' until tomorrow?"

Charles' breathing is coming in smaller gasps, and he can't help but nod his head. "I'm alright with that. After lights-out, I'll be at your door. I'm great at picking locks." His lips quirk into a devious smile.

And Erik grins sharkily in return.

-0-

Sean smiles as he enters Alex's ward. It's permissible up to three hours, which is three times as long as it's allowed in the D-Wing, and the visits can be up to twice a day, instead of only once. Sean likes it here much better than he had when he was in the D-Wing. And they even let him add some decorations to his room! It's so nice. Even his cot is softer.

Alex's entire face lights up when he sees his visitor, and his posture straightens. "Sean," he says brightly. "Hi."

Sean waves, and moves to sit beside the blond. He cocks his head and points to Alex, then raises his arms in a shrug. _What were you doing?_ he's asking.

"Oh, I was just… thinking. I don't know what about, though; I forget, now. I'm forgetting a lot of things lately. Like, I can't remember what Charles used to call me, or what I would call him, or what I would call you. Why is that? Why can't I remember? It's like I left an entire world behind by just going to another room," Alex remarks with a frown on his face.

Sean glances down between them and seizes Alex's hand, his palm covering the entire backside of the appendage, and Alex looks down and smiles at the freckled hand over his own, fingers curling to stroke his palm.

"Thanks for that. But hey, do you remember, either? Your head always was more put-together than mine. I could never figure out why you weren't in a different wing. You don't even get violent," Alex says, his frown returning.

Sean shrugs and glances away. He swallows, wishing he could say something, but every time he's tried to open his mouth when he was alone in his room, he couldn't get out more than a pathetic wheeze that wasn't even a squeak. And then he would start crying, so he would stop.

When the redhead reconnects his gaze with Alex's, he finds Alex staring at him. "Your face looks better. Fuller. You've been eating again, right?"

The mute teen nods. He uses his free hand to pat his stomach. It makes a much less hollow sound than it used to. Alex seems to relax at this, smiling softly.

"Good. I worry about you, you know. I dunno if it's 'cause you're so quiet or if it's 'cause you have those big, expressive green eyes, but whatever it is, I feel like I have to look out for you." His tone grows intense. He squeezes Sean's fingers and moves quickly, gripping the back of Sean;s neck and touching their foreheads together. "I'll always have your back, Sean. _Always._ No one's ever gonna hurt you if I'm here. And when we get out, I'm going to stick with you. Hank, too. The three of us can get jobs and live together, splitting rent. We can do this. We _can_."

Sean whimpers, not even noticing that he's making a sound until his eyes are too clouded with tears to see and he's freeing and raising both hands to fist the fabric of Alex's shirt over his shoulders. He wrenches his eyes closed and nods, whimpering again, and the blond doesn't think a thing of it when he soothes the redhead by pressing a kiss to his rosy lips.

The freckled boy sighs then, relaxing, his tears ceasing their flow from his eyes. He pulls away.

Alex laughs. "Didn't expect your visit to be like this, huh?" he teases. His tone turns bittersweet as he adds, "And I didn't expect us to be so broken."

Sean shakes his head firmly, and makes a few open motions with his hands. He draws a circle with a slash through it in the air with his finger, and makes a pantomime of a vase breaking.

"Not broken," the blond translates mutedly. He nods. "Yeah, you're right. We're not broken. Never 'broken.' And even if we were, we're getting fixed. No, we're just… surviving instead. And soon, we'll be _thriving_ instead of that. Right, Sc—" and he cuts himself off, turning sharply away and hanging his head between his knees, banging on the sides of his skull with the heels of his hands. "No, no! I can't do that again. _No._ You're Sean. You're _Sean,_ not Scott."

Sean's heart aches for Alex as he places a hand on the blond's back, thumb caressing idly between his shoulder blades. He nods, and even if he could speak, he wouldn't be able to in this instant.

Because there's nothing he _can_ say. Not about _that._

-0-

"How are you feeling today, Hank?" a nurse whose face hardly registers in the brunet's mind. "You look cold. Would you like an extra blanket?"

"Yes, please," he says softly, and he barely forms a smile for her. She nods, sets down a small cup of medicine and a glass of water, and then exits the ward. He picks up his book – it's a classic; _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ – and returns to his marked page. He can relate so well to this character, Dr. Jekyll. The man has a beast within him, one he can't seem to escape nor rid himself of, and it's all about battling for control and trying to do right by himself, if not others as well.

Hank sighs, and right as the nurse walks in, he turns another page. She steps up to the head of his bed and drapes the blanket over his shoulder, his legs tucked up near his body beneath his sheets. "There, is that better?" she asks.

He nods. "Yes, thank you."

She smiles. She lifts the medicine and water from his end table and offers it to him. "Now then, Hank, would you mind taking these? It will help you, especially to sleep tonight."

"Will it prevent my nightmares?" he whispers, peering up from his scuffed, yellow-paged paperback.

She nods. "Yes. It will make you sleep very deeply. And it will help you in other ways as well, you know. So please, take them."

"Okay," Hank says, giving another tiny smile. He removes his loose glasses and sets down in his lap while he takes each of the cups – water in his right, pills in his left – and downs them one after the other, head tilted far back while he swallows. He gasps once he's done drinking, and the nurse leans in and dabs his upper lip and chin where he dribbled. He picks up and slides his spectacles back into place, feeling complete with them on.

"There we go. Good boy, Hank," and he swears she might be speaking to a dog or a child and not the young man before her, but he doesn't say a thing about it, bitter saliva in his mouth as he chews on his tongue behind his lips, because it would be a very _monstrous_ thing to do to get angry with her over something as little as a demeaning phrase and a slight uppity tone. But when she pats his head, walking away, he nearly casts his morals aside and barks something. Except, still, he only bites his tongue harder, until he tastes the beginnings of blood. All the while he's forcing a closed smile. And then she's gone, and he finds that he doesn't care any longer.

He returns to his book, reading for about an hour and twenty minutes. Hank nearly finishes it, too, when there's a knock on his door. It unlocks, and with a nurse in tow, in strides Alex Summers.

"Alex would like to visit with you for a while, Hank," says the same woman who gave him a blanket and medicine earlier. "Would that be all right?"

" _Yes!_ –Er, um. I mean, 'yes.'" And he looks away to mask his embarrassment of sounding far too excited with his first response, his second one more composed, but hardly as nonchalant as he wanted it to be with his face so pink behind his large glasses.

The nurse giggles in the back of her throat, a closed-lip smile on her face as she closes the door, leaving Alex just beyond it. The blond has his hands shoved in his pockets, and he's kicking at the dust bunnies and lint balls on the floor, making them scurry for refuge under the bed.

"Sean was just in my room," he remarks as he keeps his head down and kicks at a fallen penny in front of him. He looks around. "These rooms are bigger than our old ones. Less cramped. I like it."

"Why was Sean in your room? Was he upset?" Hank says, brows kitting together with worry. He leans forward and pats all of the empty space on his bed. "And you can sit down, Alex. I won't hurt you. I'm getting better at that."

"Don't even joke, Beanstalk. You never really hurt anyone," Alex snorts, poking fun at Hank's height with the nickname. Hank doesn't mind. It used to bother him, but now he knows that's just how Alex is. And speaking of the blond, he's finally moving toward the cot after a few false starts. He sits cross-legged in front of Hank and lets his hands dangle in his lap, elbows on his thighs.

"Alex, why was Sean in your room?" Hank inquires again, this time with a tinge of jealousy. Hank really likes Alex, but Alex always seems not to notice, and if he notices, then he doesn't care. And Hank secretly wonders if it's because Alex likes Sean more. The two get along better, anyhow, and that's enough to leave seeds of doubt.

He looks up, finally peering into Hank's eyes. He's still avoiding the subject. "When I passed the Roaming Room entrance on the way here, I stopped in there for a minute. I talked to Armando. I asked him why he likes to stick around here. He says it's because this place is safe. It's not like the places from a long while ago when people would get beat up and have lobotomies and stuff. He says it's nice, and better than Outside. But I want to leave, Hank. I want to get better, now that I'm not stuck in my own head as much. I want to be _freed._ "

Hank wants to be forceful and demand that Alex explain about Sean, but for the time being, he tries to be patient and play along. "Where are you going with this, Alex?"

The blond slowly smiles. "I also talked to Charles in the Roaming Room. He told me that he plans on joining us in C-Wing, and then setting up an escape. And I wanted to know if you would be in on it, too. I want you to be; you deserve to get out of here, Hank." He looks two parts excited and one part fearful of Hank's reply. He leans forward and wraps his fingers around Hank's hand, closing them over the book. "Say you'll do it. Say you'll come with us. We don't have to wait if we go with Charles' plan. We can be free _now._ "

_And I can see my brothers again and you can be with Sean and me,_ Alex thinks privately. He watches as Hank's lips part and those pale blue eyes get impossibly larger behind thick, black-rimmed glasses.

Hank slowly shakes his head, eyes closing to keep from tearing up. "No, Alex. No. I… I want to continue the program, go to my therapy and take my medicine and destroy the monster inside me until I'm just Hank, _only_ Hank, and I really am ready to leave here after going up through the levels. I want to do it _right,_ Alex. When I'm back out there, with the general population –" Alex tears himself from Hank and gets up off the bed, and it hurts too much, so Hank looks the other way. "I want to be fully _normal,_ like the rest of them. I don't want to even have the tiniest bit of a threat to them to be left inside me."

Alex scowls and shouts, " _Coward!_ How can you want that? How can you be satisfied with being another boring person when you can be yourself and be free? That doesn't make any sense, Bozo!" (This time it's reference to Hank's big feet, but once again, it's due to his height, and Hank doesn't hold the nickname against Alex.) "Fine. _Fine._ We'll do it without you. Sean, Charles, Erik, Raven, and me. We'll do it _without_ you."

And he turns, stomping to the door and banging on it. He yells for the nurse, telling whichever one is nearby to let him out.

Hank flies from his bed, tossing off the covers and blanket, book falling to the floor, and rushes up behind Alex. He grabs the boy's wrists from behind, keeping them from getting any redder or bruising. "Alex! _Alex!_ Stop it, you'll hurt yourself and get sent back to the D-Wing!" he pleads, his voice a kind cry.

So Alex stills but keeps hollering, voice growing hoarse as he starts to grow limp in Hank's arms, leaning back against the brunet's taller frame. "Fuck you, Hank," he mumbles.

Hank shushes Alex and they both sink to the floor, sitting on it before the door. A nurse appears in the window, and opens the slot below it to speak. "Is everything all right in there, boys?"

"Everything's f-fine. Alex decided to stay for the rest of the three hours," Hank responds in a slight stutter, and the nurse raises a brow at what she can see of them, but nods and exits down the hall.

"I hate you," Alex groans, defeated, and rolls over from his awkwardly bent position on the floor to wrap his arms around Hank's waist and bury his head in the warmth of Hank's shirt over his stomach. "Why can't you just come with us? I don't want to leave you behind. And… and I don't want _you_ to leave _me_ behind if it fails."

The brunet inhales shakily and bites his lip. He understands, now, why Alex became so violently angry. He nods. "I know, Alex, I know. But if you just do things right, you won't have to worry about it failing, and you can be with me. Wouldn't you like that better?"

"…Maybe. But I don't want to lose myself, or my brothers. What if I wake up one day and I'm not Alex Summers anymore, I'm someone else? And I find out that Scott and Gabriel aren't out there waiting for me?" the blond shudders, and he never cries, but Hank can feel wet heat through the thin fabric of his clothes. Alex is actually crying. "I couldn't handle that, Hank. I have to believe that I'm still me and they're still there, or else I'll get worse and worse until I'm just this _thing_ that isn't Alex anymore, either."

And it's difficult to understand for the dual reasons of Alex's voice being muffled by Hank's body and Alex's words being confusing in and of themselves, but the brunet likes to think he gets it. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, Alex, I see what you mean. But I really can't go with you, and I can't force you to stay, either. So what are you going to do?"

Alex sniffled, tough-guy act back in places as he shoves himself away from Hank's body, stands, and dusts off his pants. "You know what? Forget it. I hoped you'd get it, but you don't. Fine, whatever. I really am going now."

"What? –Alex, wait. Alex –" and Hank is clumsily standing, pushing himself up by using the footboard of his bed. He grabs Alex's sleeve and looks him in the eye. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? Please don't tell me this means we're not friends. Iloveyou," he says in a rushed jumble, but adds at a clearer pace, "And I don't want to lose you as a friend."

"You're not," the blond answers in a shockingly gentle tone. He smiles the tiniest bit and takes Hank's hand off of his sleeve, only to barely press his lips to the knuckles. "And hey, I love you, too."

_But not the way I love you,_ Hank thinks glumly, but that not-quite-kiss on his hand warms him up in a manner that no blanket (or fireplace, for that matter) ever could.

And this time, Alex does leave. He hails a nurse in a more appropriate way, and exits on better terms than he had been about to the first time.

Hank sighs, feeling regret in the pit of his stomach, sour and cold (although the coldness could just be because of the drying tears and saliva in his shirt from the blond teen's weeping). He trudges back to the top of his bed, climbs back into it, curls up with his book, and hardly recalls the ending even after he finishes the entire rest of the tale.


	8. Let's Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So as Mystique weakened and dissolved into Raven, Raven started to feel recovered, as if an invisible weight had been hauled up from her chest, and an invisible shield lifted from her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware: Cliffhanger.

Sebastian Shaw shuffles through the clipboard reports and notes collected from various therapists and nurses. He shakes his head, eyes wide behind his reading glasses. He glances up at Emma, a conflicted expression on his face. "How is this possible? When did this even _begin_?" he questions with a flabbergasted and distraught tone.

The nurse clears her throat and smoothes down the front of her white blouse leading to her white pencil skirt, part of the new uniforms. "It seems that the changes happened almost overnight, gradually forming throughout a week, and lasting about a month now. One day, I suppose, Mr. Xavier and Mr. Lehnsherr and Miss Darkholme decided to better themselves. Miss Darkholme in particular has been only 'Raven' this entire time, and hasn't slipped once into 'Mystique.' It's wonderful, really. I'm just as shocked about it as you are."

Shaw grunts and tosses down the papers. "That's great about Erik and Raven, but _Xavier_ as well? I don't know. That seems fishy. I don't like the idea of him suddenly being such a well-mannered patient. He's always been off and on with his drugs, and constant with his mind-games with others."

Nurse Frost shakes her head. She steps closer, around his desk, toward him. "That's just the thing, Sebastian," she comments with a hint of her own suspicion in her voice, her blue eyes bone-chilling, "He hasn't said a word about mutants, mutations, mind-reading, or odd dreams in weeks. And neither have the other two."

The warden frowns deeply and sets his mouth into a thin, hard line. "That so."

"Yes," she hisses, blonde hair perfect as she stands close to him, not touching, but within reach.

Shaw clicks his tongue in annoyance. "This is awful. I have no choice, by regulation's standards, but to move all three of them up to the C-Wing. But that Xavier boy…" He shakes his head, hands behind his back. "I don't like it one bit, my pet."

She nods. "I'm on you with this one, sugar. I don't like it, either. And it's not that too many patients are moving up in record time, but the _unity_ of it all; all three of them interact often. They're friends, although I question the closeness between Lehnsherr and Xavier."

"I do as well. Not that I mind; there's nothing wrong with homosexuals, but it's still a rare thing to see in a place like this. Any romances are, really; lust is one thing, but those two seem entirely _absorbed_ in one another, and it's a little jarring," Sebastian chuckles without much humor. He sighs, loosens his arms and brings his hands around front to touch Emma's face. "My dear, let's move them up. They have been good, after all. Trickery or not, I refuse to break my own rules. Bend them, perhaps, but never break. So tell the front desk to transfer them to the C-Wing, but also tell them to transfer Hank McCoy to the B-Wing. He's been a rather good boy lately; this past month, he's been even better than I could have hoped. He's made real progress, in fact. He's more coherent and less timid. It's fantastic."

Nurse Frost can't say she disagrees. She's always liked that boy; he's bright for someone who's lost part of his mind, and he's so sweet when he isn't clawing at others and claiming that he's a 'monster' or a 'beast.' She nods, smiles, pecks a kiss on the warden's cheek, and slips out his office door with musical taps of her heeled shoes.

Sebastian hums the rhythm her shoes make as she walks down the hall, and pivots on his loafers to gaze out the window. "Today is a beautiful day," he remarks idly to himself. "It's a good day for a change of scenery. And a nice visit. But both will have to wait until tomorrow, an equally nice day, because there is much preparation to do."

-0-

"I'm being moved to the C-Wing?" Charles says, feigning surprise. He claps his hands together. "Splendid! This is such an honor. Thank you, _truly_!"

The nurse escorting the guards acting as moving hands with Charles' personal items (memoir, typewriter, special desk chair, etc.) smiles and finalizes a few things, lime sending in a crew to repaint the mint green to an eggshell white.

Except there's a moment, a miniscule moment that happens when the room is empty and waiting to be painted that Charles remarks, "Oh, I am going to miss this room. It's the same one I've had for years. May I please bid it farewell in private? It's like leaving a home, you know," to the nurse.

"Oh, ah… sure, yes. That's fine," she says, and she frowns a little, but nods nonetheless, leading the men with objects in their arms to Charles' new room in the C-Wing.

Watching them until they are out of sight, Charles turns back into his room, flicks on the light, and wanders over to the wall of tally marks. "I'll have to start all over again," he whispers. He brings out a marker and writes out a series of digits along his forearm under the long sleeve of his pajamas.

_7, 15, 23, 36, 48, 52, 64, 77, 89, 93, 109, 122…_ All the way intermittently until page _332,_ the last page he's typed _._ All of these random numbers aren't random at all; they are the ends of chapters or other pages with alternate versions of them, each one counted as a cross among lines throughout Charles' chain on the wall.

He caps the marker, blows on the ink until it dries, and finally moves over to his bed. He lifts the mattress and starts clearing out all of the pages he just wrote the numbers of on his arm. He hides them in the stuffing of his special pillow. He tore the hole with brute strength just the night before, when he heard the nurses murmuring that he would be moving today.

(Charles refuses to admit to himself how satisfying it had felt to rip the fabric open, cottony stuffing flying in his face, the zipping sound of broken stitching music to his ears, the strain of his muscles sweet and burning. He refuses to acknowledge in the forefront of his mind how similar it felt to what he did that landed him in this psych ward to begin with.)

Then, from a worn hole in the loop around a sleeve cuff seam, Charles extracts a threaded needle he stole off of a nurse who was left her mending kit in his room, he sews the pillow back up rather cleanly. Then he tucks the needle away again, a little too thrilled by the icy way it pricks his wrist by mistake through his sleeve.

Smiling contentedly, the former telepath slinks out of his room, saluting it, and marches proudly down the hall. The nurse is waiting for him at the end of it, there to escort him to his new room.

They've already painted it green, but this is a sea foam shade, fresh and crisp and smelling of new paint in that intoxicatingly lovely way. Charles inhales deeply, dumps his pillow onto his new bed, and plops down onto its naked mattress.

"Here are new sheets. Would you like help making your bed, Charles?" the nurse asks.

"No, that won't be necessary. I prefer to do it myself, thank you. This whole setup is rather nice, and more spacious than my previous room! It's wonderful," he remarks, and honestly, he should have done this sooner, if only to live more comfortably in this place. But then again, when one is on the bottommost rung of the ladder, it _is_ easier to get away with things and be punished less, because there isn't anything left to take away from you, really.

"All right. Have a good afternoon, then, Charles," the nurse says sweetly, and locks him in his new room.

The first thing Charles does is remove his marker from his slipper-shoe and move to the wall above his typewriter. He makes tally marks, mindlessly marking them off row after row, column after column, making the tallies _7, 15, 23, 36, 48, 52, 64, 77, 89, 93, 109, 122…_ through until _332_ into crosses as he goes.

And then, finally, he caps the marker with a final click and grins at his graffiti. He looks down at his papers on his desk, still kept in order and recently bound for transport. He touches a hand to a stack. It feels like a lifetime. And it is, because he's done it. He's finished his entire memoir this month. It's a complete record of his previous life, scattered throughout minute mentions of his current life. It ranges from first memories of his childhood up through his death by Jean Grey, or, rather, her alter ego, The Phoenix. It's perfect, just the way it is. He wouldn't change a thing.

Except, of course, for including his alterations.

Charles turns back to his bed, picks up his pillow, and yanks the thread he sewed but didn't tie off. He removes all of his paper rats, lifts his mattress, tears a compartment into his new mattress, and tucks the rats amongst springs and filling.

And then he calmly re-sews his pillow, lays it down, and makes his bed before indulging in a nice nap.

_Things are going perfectly according to plan,_ Charles thinks dreamily. _And I couldn't have done it without Erik's help._

-0-

Erik, meanwhile, isn't having as easy a time adjusting. His new room is too brightly lit and not the right shade of silvery grey as his previous room, and it's too big in comparison and too empty because of the widened space. He hates to think what the B- and A-Wing rooms are like; are they even brighter and bigger? God, he would just _hate_ that.

The former metalbender grunts a few times as he shifts on the new mattress. It's too soft. He's used to the firmer one from his old room, as well as floors and the ground. He slept on the ground quite often during his wanderings. He's traveled to many places, stealing money or rides or camping out because he had neither.

But it's not as though he was given much after he was orphaned. His parents had little money to begin with, and one dying right after the other didn't leave much room for anything, and their life insurance was low, despite how his father died.

But none of that matters now. It can't matter, not when Erik has a plan to focus on. _The_ Plan.

They need to worm their way up the ranks to the B-Wing. From there, they will have a few Outside privileges, and with that, they can be on the Grounds of the asylum. And from the Grounds, they can flee the scene, over the Fence, across the Parking Lot, and out into the World. And then they're home free. Charles has money, Erik was told, and he doesn't have his old mansion in Westchester, but he does have a nice house being continually held and paid for by a relative using money from Charles' bank account.

So that's the plan. With Alex and Sean and Raven and whoever else can come along, he and Charles are going to run away together, quite literally. Charles' home is a state over, and it's not on file because his relative bought it during Charles' stay in this place.

So it's perfect. It's been planned for years. It will _work._

He doesn't doubt it. He really _doesn't._ He only doubts himself a smidge, and definitely doubts his ability to keep it together long enough to get through this. Erik never was very good at being a goody-goody. He was a nice child, sure, and he loved his parents, but then things got messy and he was shoved into foster homes and ran away and tried to live on his own and it was all a jumble of horrible things that turned him as unforgiving as steel.

So here he is, he supposes. He finally outdid himself enough to get landed here.

But it sure as fuck beats prison.

And he's so overwhelmingly glad that, despite the circumstances, he was able to meet one Charles Francis Xavier. Nothing beats that, actually. It all comes down to solely that fact: Erik might have lived an uneven slice of life, but that path brought him to the only person he's ever had the pleasure of falling in love with, and that suits him just fine.

And once they get out of here, they can have a life together, and it can be everything Erik has ever secretly hungered for in life.

-0-

For a while, she was Mystique pretending to be Raven, wearing Raven's voice and tones and mannerisms like a costume and mask, but as the weeks wore by, the lines blurred more and more. And now, the walls are so thin that Mystique is like a dream, and Raven can't say she remembers the dream at all, because Mystique knew of Raven and her other personalities, but Raven herself, the original recipe, never knew about any of them at all.

So as Mystique weakened and dissolved into Raven, Raven started to feel recovered, as if an invisible weight had been hauled up from her chest, and an invisible shield lifted from her mind.

The girl with her bouncy, wavy, blonde hair struts down the corridor to the cafeteria for lunch, her stomach growling for the first time in a long while, and she actually feels well enough to want to devour more than her usual. She skips merrily into the cafeteria, swinging doors bursting open and Angel smiling her way as she enters.

"Raven, hey!" Angel calls out, and Raven smiles and waves. As she paces over toward the lunch line, Angel assembles something on a tray. "Here, have one on me. I wanted to save you some ice cream from my little run to the store last night to celebrate you moving up to the C-Wing," she tells the other girl.

"Oh! Thank you so much!" Raven replies in a chipper tone. She takes the bowl and holds it up, admiring the chocolate syrup over strawberry and chocolate ice cream scoops, her favorites. There's no whip cream on it, but there are chopped pecans and a maraschino cherry atop the sundae, and that's enough for her. She kisses two fingers, taps Angel's cheek, and thanks her again.

"Anytime! You earned it," Angel tells her.

"Aww, you really are an angel, Angel," Raven teases. She winks as she turns away, headed for a table to devour her treat and then move in for a real meal. Some other patients eye her dessert and lick their lips, but Raven pays them no mind, humming happily as she licks her plastic spoon bite by bite. _They can be envious all they want, but if they just try a little harder to follow the rules and if they just open up to their therapists more, they can have ice cream, too,_ Raven thinks rationally.

Azazel is on cafeteria watch for breakfast only, but Raven finds that she doesn't miss him as much as she thought she might. She's too busy enjoying her ice cream to really bother with thinking about him.

Raven spies Logan across the way, seated at a table by himself, smoking a cigar and sketching. When she finishes her sundae, she tosses out the spoon and returns the bowl and tray. Then she makes her way over to him and sits down in front of him. "What're you drawing?"

"Was drawing you, actually," Logan mutters, his voice always as rough as a gravel road. He blows out a stream of smoke from both nostrils. "Here, take a look-see. It's scratchy and dark, but that's 'cause I use charcoals. They won't let me at anything harder, 'fraid I'll stab someone or something. Tch."

"Ooh, wow," Raven says, taking the sheet of newspaper-feeling paper and looking at the drawing. It's her, all right; it has her hair, and an outline of her face, eyes down with the lashes splayed while she raises a spoonful of ice cream halfway up to her mouth. It's big and semi-detailed and only shows her from the tabletop and up. "This is so cool. Can I keep it? Can I?"

"Sure," he says, smiling a bit through his stubble and between his sideburn-mutton-chops. He slicks back his hair further, skipping over the flipped-up parts on the sides as he glances away. "I always throw out what I draw, anyway. I'm no artist; I just do it 'cause there's nothing else to do, and I drew you this time 'cause you were the only decent model around. Don't think it's 'cause I'm gonna date ya or something. You're too young."

And it isn't a cover-up; he actually means it, and Raven can tell. With Logan, there's no bullshitting or lies; what he says is what he means, and he means what he says. He's rather blunt about it, but at least it's all truths.

"No, I know that you don't think of me that way," she laughs. Suddenly, his earlier words reach her. "Wait, what? You'd throw it _out?_ But it looks _terrific_!" Raven protests. She pokes him in his firm chest. "Listen here, Logan: the next time you want to throw out a drawing, just give it to me. I'll keep it and hang it on my wall in my room. I can only draw stick figures, so this is really great to me. So I'm going to keep it, and any others. Got it?"

He laughs at her, deep and throatily. Shaking his head, his sticks his cigar between his teeth. "Yeah, okay, Blondie. Whatever you say." And he inhales, blowing some smoke back at her, making her sputter and giggle.

She's distracted the second Erik walks into the cafeteria, however. She gets up from her seat near Logan and rushes over to him. While the tall, lean man has been growing increasingly fond of her in a little-sister-like manner as Charles feels toward her, Raven has been having this growing crush on him.

Oh, it's a child-like one, she knows, and fleeting at best, but she can't help herself. She knows how her big-brother-figure feels about the same man, but she can't say she blames him. After all, Erik is suave in his own way, rough around the edges, but not as drastically as Logan, and his voice is addicting to listen to, in her opinion.

"Erik~! Hi," Raven greets. "Look what Logan drew for me!" and she thrusts the paper at him.

His eyebrows rise on his forehead and he smiles a bit. "He's got talent. It looks just like you. Did you really have ice cream?"

"Yeah, it was to celebrate moving to C-Wing. Angel got it for me," Raven replies, walking alongside Erik as he lines up behind a few other patients for lunch. "I would have saved you some," she teases, "But it was too good to stop eating. I haven't had ice cream in _forever._ I forgot how sweet and creamy and perfect it is."

"Mm," Erik hums in agreement, only partially listening. "Well, I'm glad you got to enjoy it, Mystique."

Raven frowns. Something hazy enters her mind, flitting through like a brief sunbeam behind shutter-blinds on a window. She blinks, primary colors flashing in her mind's eyes, and then it's gone. She smiles faintly, a lost expression on her face. "Who's that?"

Erik stops dead, turning to look at her. "What do you _mean,_ who's that? That's _you!_ You're Mystique." He pauses, his frown turning dark on his face, intimidating Raven enough to lose her smile and back up a half step. "You _are_ Mystique… aren't you?"

Raven's breath hitches and she shakes her head like a child confronting an angry parent. "No, no," she groans, backing away. "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't…" and she drifts off, turning and bolting form the cafeteria.

"Hey, bub!" Logan barks out, snarling at the scene. He stands from his chair. "Did you upset her? –Hey! I'm talking to _you,_ Lanky!"

Erik freezes even further. _Don't act out, don't act out, don't act out,_ he reminds himself repeatedly. _Magneto would keep his calm. Magneto would stick to the plan. You can do this, Erik,_ he tells himself firmly. _You can avoid conflict with him, avoid being sent back to D-Wing on your first full day of being in C-Wing._

Erik turns around, forcing a smile. "No, everything is fine, Wolverine. Keep your claws to yourself. It was only a misunderstanding between the girl and I, nothing more. She'll be fine."

Logan makes a scoffing sound at the name and rolls his shoulders. He sits back down in one thudding movement, chair sliding back on the linoleum. "She better be. She's a good kid, and punks like you screwing with her ain't kosher, y'hear?"

"Loud and clear," Erik says with a curt bow he uses to hide his scowl. When he straightens up again, he's already moving back into the lunch line and getting served today's special: overcooked pizza. He takes it, finds a seat, and waits for Charles. He always seems to be waiting for Charles, and it makes him wonder what the other man does with his time.

A few short minutes later, Hank is trailing in like a lost, frightened puppy with its tail tucked between its legs. Alex and Sean are right behind him, laughing (silently on Sean's part) at something, looking oddly cheerful for two boys in an insane asylum. At least, too _logically_ cheerful, as opposed to the giggling hysterics of many _illogical_ patients.

"Lehnsherr, hey!" Alex calls out, arm around Sean's shoulders. "And wait up, Hank! I said we would get our food _together,_ remember?" And then the blond drapes his other arm around Hank's shoulders, and Hank seems to stand taller and look more relaxed now that he's being included, the figurative tail untucked and wagging lightly.

But Erik hardly pays them any mind, because his thoughts are circling right back to whatever had just occurred with Raven. Why did she react that way? Have her therapy sessions finally cracked and brainwashed her into believing that Mystique doesn't exist, that none of her alternate, mutant life exists? And does this mean she won't be trying to escape this facility with him and Charles?

"Come on, Erik, I called your name like five times already," Alex says with a roll of his eyes, dropping down into a chair backwards, straddling the back of it, arms resting on time. Sean quietly takes a seat next to the blond, and Hank does the same, albeit a hair louder, and on the opposite side.

"My apologies, Havok. I was lost in thought," Erik replies.

Alex frowns for a moment, but then he has a look of realization on his face. " _Havok!_ That's what my nickname was!" He nudges Sean. "See? I knew it was something like that. Can't believe I forgot."

Erik tenses. "You mean to say you couldn't remember it?"

"No, not since I stopped being around Charles all the time in the D-Wing. It's weird, huh? It's like I don't even think about that stuff unless Charles is around," and he chuckles. "Er, Professor X, sorry. That was his nickname, right? I remember that now, too. Oh! And yours was Magneto!" Alex says, all of it rushing back a bit. He feels strange. He frowns and pushes away from his chair. "You know, I'm suddenly not very hungry. I'll see you guys later."

And just like that, all at once, Alex is heading back for his room. He feels like he needs to be alone. And it's not reverting, he tells himself; it's not like he wants to be in the padded cell. No, no, he just… needs a moment to think. A few moments, actually.

Hank scoots closer to Sean in Alex's absence. "That was odd. Should I go talk to him?"

Sean immediately nods his head 'yes.' _Since I can't,_ he thinks sadly.

"Yes, you should, I think," Erik frowns. "Go ahead, Beast. I'll save you a slice of pizza, if you like. Before the cafeteria closes until dinner."

The brunet boy nods, thanks the other man, and then exits the room. And then it's just Sean and Erik, the older of the two munching on his food while the younger flicks crumbs off the table's surface with his fingers.

In the silence, Erik ponders a few things. There is a trend here, and it doesn't take a genius to figure it out: Charles must be manipulating the younger patients' minds with the remnants of his other self's powers. That's the only explanation; they must be influenced by Charles when he's near enough _to_ influence them. It all makes sense. But why would Charles force them to remember? Wouldn't they recall on their own? After all, it was their lives, too…

Shaking his head, Erik decides to drop it for now. He only wishes he could move metals magnetically like he used to. It made life surprisingly a lot easier for him, but even in a place like this, not much is made out of metal to begin with except the pipes on the ceilings in the halls, the bed frames and springs, and all f the doors.

Erik jerks upward. The _doors!_ He could bust out of here if only he could still control the doors! It would be so easy, if he had his powers back; he could unlock, throw open, or crush entire doors, as well as the gates and fences Outside! If only, if only…

And it's just a little unfair that Charles retained some of his mutation, but Erik and the others didn't (well, perhaps Raven kept some of hers for a while, in a different form; her multiple personalities).

He sighs, polishes off his pizza, and peers up to find Sean still idly dusting off the table with one hand and looking generally bored.

"Aren't you going to eat?" Erik asks with slight disinterest, his mind elsewhere.

Sean barely lifts his head. His freckled face looks rather pale. He shakes his head 'no' and drops it again onto his forearm.

"Why not? Aren't you hungry?" Erik frowns. "Give me a sign or something, boy."

Sean shrugs and leans back in his chair, off of the table. He looks around, then his green eyes fall on Erik. Without a sound, he gets up from his chair and goes into the line. Angel has a relieved expression on her face, Erik notices, when Sean actually the food. He picks at it when he returns, but he does eat most of it in the end. And Erik realizes that he has a similarly relieved expression on his face as well, because it's never good to see someone half-starve themselves.

Magneto leans forward and pats one of Sean's hands resting on the tabletop. "It's going to be alright, Banshee. Mark my words: Charles and I will sort all of this out, for everyone." _Especially after I ask him a few questions,_ he adds mentally.

Sean merely nods and returns to eating his food, about ready to put away his tray and plate. He wants to pantomime, 'I wonder what Hank is saying to Alex right now?' but it would be too difficult to spell out without paper and a writing utensil handy, so he opts to keep the curious thought to himself in place of that. He would only frustrate Erik with his hand signs anyhow, and he would hate to frustrate an easily angered man.

-0-

Charles is cheerfully pacing down the hallway, on his way to lunch, when a shadow falls across his path from behind, the florescent lights overhead making the shadow dance and cross with the other lights. He stops, eyes slowly panning upward and looking to his left as the figure falls into step beside him, standing with its hands behind its back.

"Xavier! Just the man I wanted to see? Off to lunch, are you?" Sebastian Shaw, the warden of the entire building, asks with a smile Charles can _feel_ is as plastic and expensive as a credit card. (Because "talk is cheap and lies are expensive," they say.) And it's definitely as cool and unfeeling as a credit card, too. It's a smile that could easily haunt Charles' waking nightmares, if placed on the wrong person or _thing,_ like a shadowy abomination.

"I was, yes, sir," Charles replies, cautious in tone and on his toes in mind. He needs to be sharp and quick with this man, or else everything could go wrong. _Absolutely everything,_ Charles emphasizes mentally, swallowing dryly as disjointed thoughts flicker across his mind.

"Well, if you don't mind, I have a much higher-class meal waiting in my office that we could share," he says with just as plastic and false warmth and friendliness, arm looping around Charles' shoulders, "While we partake in a little whiskey and man-to-man chit-chat. What do you say? Join me for a short while? A half hour at the most, I promise," Sebastian says, his smile growing wicked. Charles instantly thinks of a sinister, bloody-toothed version of the Cheshire cat, and not the Disney version that's cuddly and purple-striped, either.

"Ah… sure. Yes, that sounds lovely," Charles fibs, and he forces a lie of a smile of his own. He follows the man uncomfortably through the halls, past the receptionist's desk, and into his office.

Shaw closes the door, locks it from within, key slipping into the handkerchief pocket of his jacket. "Have a seat, please," he says smoothly, and Charles has no choice but to obey, taking the only seat opposite the large leather one behind the warden's sturdy mahogany desk. "And help yourself to the covered plate in front of you. It's salmon, still hot, in a lemon thyme and butter sauce with garlic asparagus on the side. I thought you might like it."

"Oh, I do," Charles says as calmly as possibly, trying to keep himself centered as he reaches for the cover over the plate to keep the food warm. It's hot under his touch, but not too much so that it burns. There is a puff of steam when he removes it, and it smells heavenly. Charles' stomach growls as if it has never been fed before. He glances up nervously. "Aren't you joining me in eating?"

"Oh, of course, but after I pour us a few drinks," Shaw remarks. "On the rocks or not?"

"On the rocks, please," Charles answers. He smirks, unable to help himself. "I thought alcohol was prohibited on the Grounds?"

"Not in my office it isn't~!" Sebastian replies in a sing-song voice. He chuckles and steps over to his desk, setting down two stout, crystal glasses of whiskey, one with ice and one without. "Now then," he says, seating himself, dusting off his lap, and lacing his fingers to rest on his desk surface. "Let's talk."

-0-

"I wonder what's keeping Charles?" Erik remarks as Hank returns. Sean comes back from putting away his empty tray and plate, as well as from dumping his garbage, just a second later.

"I saw him in the hallway," Hank says with a puzzled frown. "He was right behind me, about to come in here. Do you think he went to the bathroom instead?"

Erik grits his teeth. "Everyone has a schedule their bladder falls into. And Charles' has nothing to do with lunchtime. No, something must be out of place," he says, standing up. "I'm going to look for him. Don't wait for me." And he storms out of the cafeteria.

The redhead sighs, and Hank shrugs. He turns to the redhead. "So… I'm sure you want to know about Alex?" he asks Sean.

The mute nods eagerly, leaning forward in his chair to face Hank easier.

The brunet sucks in a breath and combs back his hair nervously. "Er, um. W-well…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason why I made Logan able to draw is mainly because I am forever amused by the quote from the second X-Men movie where they're at Bobby's family's house and it's asked of "Professor" Logan, "What do you teach?" To which he responds, "Art." -It's a total joke and not serious at all, but I fancy the idea of him being an artist in secret.


	9. Acchem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please say that all you found was a torn bit of fabric and crooked springs. Please tell me that I got all of the papers from there. Please.

Charles narrows his eyes at Shaw, waiting for the first topic of conversation to mosey on into being. He pretends to preoccupy himself with eating (because no way is he going to pass up gourmet-esque food like this, atmospheric tension or not) while he waits for the warden to truly begin their so-called "chit-chat."

Sebastian clears his throat, and it sounds disgustingly phlegmy. " _Acchem._ " He removes his reading glasses and folds them neatly, setting them aside.

Charles can see all of his wrinkles coming in, particularly around his eyebrows and mouth. _He must be a smoker with lip-lines like that,_ Charles muses. He makes sure to study every last part of this man, looking for any and all body language signals, because this man's head is too intricate to try and read.

"What I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Xavier, is the contents of your room. Your old room in the D-Wing, specifically-speaking. I made sure to have it searched from top to bottom in standard procedure the second you left it early this morning. We have to be thorough, you see, for any new patient who moves in, and also to double-check for any illegal contraband. You know, the usual flim-flam shit that any place would do; like a prison might, for example."

_He didn't hesitate to dive right into it, did he?_ Charles scoffs mentally. _No matter. He won't have anything on me. I can be thorough, too._

Shaw offhandedly lowers his gaze to remove his own dish cover. He busies his hands with plucking his fork from his rolled napkin and starting to eat. Around bites, eyes glued to his plate, he carries on with the same listless tone: "And you know, for a while, we didn't find a thing? That is, until I went in there myself and ordered the mattress to be flipped over, because the mattress is always where I would hide my porn as a child, so any dirty secret should be there, correct?"

Charles feels his insides grow cold. Bone-chillingly cold, as is an icy tundra swept in and froze his stomach and intestines and lungs and liver and spleen. He swallows hard, but attempts to appear normal. "Yes, I suppose that would make sense. And did you find anything? Any of my dirty secrets?"

_Please say no. Please say that all you found was a torn bit of fabric and crooked springs. Please tell me that I got all of the papers from there. Please,_ Charles thinks in a rush.

Shaw grins broader, glancing up from his food. "Just one. But that one was enough."

Charles literally feels his heart stop beating for a breath-stealing moment. "Oh? I'm sure I don't know what –"

"This," the warden relays with a thread of venom strung through the words by the letter. He takes from a drawer of his desk an unfolded sheet of paper. "Typed up with a typewriter, and speaking about chess. And there is only one person in this asylum who is a writer, and only one from your room who has ever been a fan of a game like _chess_."

And as Charles is handed the piece of paper, he's pretty sure he already knows what's written on it.

"The plastic chess pieces were smooth and glossy under my dry fingertips, my aged hands subtly trembling as I made another move on the board. Even confined to that plastic prison, and even confined to a wheelchair as I was, Erik and I were still equals on opposing sides of a chessboard…"

Charles glances upward, unadulterated fear he hasn't felt in years pulsing through his veins in a thick way, as if fat were clogging his arteries. His lips quirk into a painful, you-caught-me smile. "So what now, Mr. Shaw?" he asks, and he doesn't even bother to mask the terror that makes his words waver like a telephone wire during a storm, ready to snap.

Sebastian, however, has an odd expression on his face that isn't half as infuriated or vile as Charles would have thought it to be. He looks… complacent, like this is what he expected. He stands from his chair and walks around to behind Charles', and Charles worries for a split second that Shaw is going to wrap his fingers around Charles' neck and squeeze.

Instead, however, the warden places his hands along Charles' trapezius and massages them for a second. "Relax, Xavier, relax. Despite the fact that the page in your hands mentions escape, I know now that you moving up in the ranks means that you want to be released, and escape that way. Aren't I right?"

Charles exhales slowly. This is much better, much _safer_ territory. "Yes, of course that's right."

Sebastian gives a little squeeze to Charles' shoulders, and then releases him with a pat. "Yes, as I thought. And even though that last line makes me sound like a rather bad guy, we both know that I wouldn't – what word did you use? – _impede_ you from proper recovery. And not any of the other patients, either. You are all like my children," he says, moving to face Charles, half-sitting on his desk before the younger man. "And I care about your welfare. So if you aren't happy here, I want to make you happier. If you are starting to see the light, the _sanity_ in the world, then who am I to stop you? I'm here to help you grow, not be stunted and left behind."

"Oh. Uh, good," Charles says, his usually articulate speech failing him in this instant.

Shaw grins. "I'm glad we agree," he tells the former telepath, "Because I am a reasonable man, all I ever ask for are my expectations to be met. And I _expect_ you to continue to behave yourself in the wonderful way you have been, and I _expect_ nothing to spring up and bite either of us in the ass, and I _expect_ us to both go on our merry ways and part as equals in mind." He leans forward, threateningly close to Charles. His voice lowers; an intimidation tactic. And boy, is it working. "And that isn't too much to ask, now, _is it_?"

The younger man shakes his head. He's tense all over again. "No, Warden. Not too much at all."

Satisfied, Sebastian leans away, gets up from his desk, and puts on a close-lipped smile that tugs irritatingly on Charles' nerves. "Fantastic! So glad we had this chat. You can go ahead and take that plate with you to the cafeteria and finish eating, if you like. There's nothing more I have to say to you, Xavier."

"Thank you, sir," Charles mumbles, and he picks up the plate and fork and hastily leaves the office, his body calming down to normal.

He hands off his food to a random patient in the hallway to take it and greedily shove it into their mouth with their fingers, and Charles is left gripping his fork. He rushes into the cafeteria, sees Sean and Hank conversing, and asks in a shaky voice where Erik is.

"Oh, uh…" Hank begins. He frowns. "He left to go find you. Where did you go, Charles?"

The older brunet waves a hand in the air. "Don't ask. Please, can you tell me where he said he would look first?"

"You could try your room, and the bathrooms," Hank offers quietly. He has concern written across his face. "Are you okay? You're… all s-shaken up." And he stands, hesitantly reaching out a hand, but quickly retracting it when he remembers with a flash of pain that he shouldn't touch others unless they touch him first.

"No, I'm fine, Hank, I'm – it's all right, really. I just… I need Erik. I need _Erik_ ," Charles blabs on, looking with panicked eyes around the room. He shakes his head, turning away, and Sean stands and attempts to touch Charles' shoulder. "No!" he groans, "I really need to go. I need to find Erik!"

Sean opens his mouth. He wants to say something, anything. He doesn't like Charles looking stressed like this, so insecure and childish and small. It isn't right. It isn't like the Charles that the mute knows. He curses himself for being mute, because it can't be that difficult to speak, can it? Babies can do it, even if they don't always form words in a human language. So why can't he…?

But before Sean can make a move at all, really attempt to speak or not, Charles is out the door again, racing down the hall.

-0-

The redhead drops back down into his seat, sighing, head hung.

Hank joins him, his head shaking slowly. He blows air out his own mouth, upward, mussing his bangs. He looks to Sean and says, "Er, anyway… What was I saying? Oh. Right. _Alex_."

Sean's head picks back up, interest on his face. He makes a gesture, as if to say, 'go on.'

Hank rubs his forehead and purses his lips. "When I caught up with him, he told me that he just needs a minute to think. I asked him what about, 'cause, you know, I worry about him. He told me he just isn't sure who he is sometimes. Things get confused in his head, he told me. And I don't blame him. The same thing happens to me, too. And you, maybe?"

Sean nods, affirming that fact.

Hank nods once, and then goes on, "Anyhow, I asked him if it has to do with Charles. He said it did. He told me, and I quote," he deepens the sound of his voice in an imitation as he echoes Alex's words, "'Are we even sure what he's saying is true? Sometimes I think I remember it, but what if it's not real? What if it never happened? 'Cause it's not like we have 'remnants of our powers' like he claims to have. So what if it's all a really good lie?'" His voice returns to normal to say next, "–And hearing him say that got me thinking, 'What is Alex is right?' Because as much as I have always believed in other dimensions and alternate realities, the possibility seems slim to none that we could recall things or possess the same abilities as our parallel selves."

Sean tries to wrap his mind around all of this, he really does. He musters up a slow nod, but a few things are a bit lost on him. _Hank has a point. But for a while, I liked to believe in Charles. I like to think that I had a voice, and that I could fly with it. I liked to believe that things were…_ different _than they are now._ The redhead makes a face. _Too bad I can't tell Hank this. Talking is easier said than done after not doing it for so long. I'm just… so afraid to. It hurts when I try, and I keep thinking of that night when all I could hear were my own screams merging with my parents', and –_

He severs his thoughts before they begin, his eyes brimming with tears. He blinks them away. Hanks caught sight of them, however. "Sean? Hey, are you alright?"

The freckled boy nods, sniffling. He does the sign language gesture for 'parents,' and comprehension flickers across the spectacled boy's face.

"Oh. You thought of your parents. I can only imagine why; I mean, Charles said they lived in the other reality, right? And me talking about it…" Hank nibbles his lip apologetically. "Sorry."

Sean waves it aside. _It's fine,_ he thinks.

Hank nods. "Yeah, okay. Um. So, there's one other thing Alex said to me."

The redhead looks up, and he doesn't need to speak to ask, 'What was it?'

The brunet of the two has a solemn expression on his face. He informs his friend with no impersonation in his voice this time, "He said, 'I'm still getting out of here, though. One way or another, I'm leaving, and I don't care who comes with. –Because I know my brothers are dead, okay? I _know_ that. But that won't stop me from living _for_ them, keeping them alive _inside_ me, in my heart _._ Got that?'"

-0-

"Erik, Erik, Erik, Erik," Charles murmurs under his breath as he paces down the hallway, looking left and right and front and back, looking for a turtleneck – wait, no, that would be from when they were mutants. No, there isn't a turtleneck here. Right. Right. He has to look for stand-issue hospital pajamas instead, usually grey or light blue or light green for the boys. Charles prefers the blue. Erik likes the green and grey. So he looks for it, searches all over, peeking into rooms and down other corridors around the C-Wing and Roaming Room.

Finally, _finally,_ he comes across Erik outside the former metalbender's ward, his head in his hands, eyes closed in frustration, where he sits against the locked door.

"Where the fuck did he _go?_ " Erik is mumbling to himself.

"Right here," Charles answers as he steps up to his lover and crouches down, a smile of relief on his face. Erik's expression clears as well.

"I was worried," Erik tells the slightly younger man, reaching out and touching his face. "You can't do that to me, Charles. This whole place is hazardous. Guards, the warden, even nosy nurses –" He makes an infuriated snarl. "I need to be able to _protect_ you! I can't have something like The Beach happen again. I won't stand for it."

The former telepath grips Erik's hand tightly and nods. "I know. I know, love, I know. But you can't possibly keep an eye on me all the time. And just now…" He shudders.

"Charles. Tell me what happened." Erik demands, not even bothering to phrase it as a question. "I need to _know_ what happened to you to make you skip lunch."

"Sebastian Shaw took me to his office for a meal and a private talk," Charles whispers, and he watches as Erik's entire body goes rigid. Suddenly they are both standing, Erik pulling Charles with him, and Erik is growing stoic, teeth exposed and glare deadly.

"What. Did. He. Say," he grinds out, his teeth gnashing, and he is the definition of 'seething.'

"Erik? Erik _please,_ calm your mind –" Charles attempts, but Erik is too triggered to comply.

"No!" he roars, right there in the hallway. A passing nurse halts and turns to look at them.

"Is everything all right?" she ventures, and Charles can tell that she is two seconds form calling in some guards because of the way Erik looks.

"Yes, it's fine, we just – Could you let us into his room? I need to talk to him," he tells her. He wishes it were Moira; she would understand, and she could _help._ Alas, she's all the way over in the B-Wing, and unable to do a thing.

She nods slowly, withdraws some keys ("This one?" "Yes, that one. Patient number 214782's ward, right there.") and unlocks Erik's door for them both.

And Charles finds it vaguely amusing that she doesn't remind them of the 'no sex' rule. She probably doesn't know how they feel about one another, and wouldn't expect it since they happen to be two men and not the usual man-and-woman. He refrains from smiling.

They are locked again in Erik's room, and Erik is breathing harshly through his nose. "Stop it, Charles, I need to get to him! Don't you see? He's trying to tame you, trying to find a reason to hurt you, because he already suspects, I'm sure, that we're planning –"

"He _knows_ what we're planning, but I made him misinterpret the meaning of the word 'escape.' He now thinks that we are progressing naturally because we are ready to leave the legal way," Charles relays smoothly.

Erik can't tell that it's a partial lie; Charles never made Shaw believe a thing. Shaw came to the conclusion on is own, at least verbally. But in subtext, Charles knows that Shaw was forcing his goals onto Charles, purposely misinterpreting the meaning to twist it for his own gains. Shaw is clever that way, and it makes Charles feels sickly inferior. He hates it. But Erik doesn't know, and that will spare Erik a lot of punishment.

"Oh, that's fine, then," Erik says, sighing with relief. "We can still work with that." He frowns slightly. "Except… how did he find out about it?"

"He discovered one of my paper rats, the ones I showed you. I left one behind in my old room by mistake," Charles mutters ashamedly. He sighs. "Still, we're safe for the time being, and that's all that matters."

"That's all that matters," Erik repeats, snorting. "Sure, right. Let's believe that." He shakes his head and grabs onto Charles' biceps, looking him in the eye. "It's not good enough. We need to be _secure._ We can't afford a slip-up. And we need to start recruiting, getting people on our side who are _inside._ Get what I mean?"

"…More patients?" Charles questions.

The other man wags a finger as he releases one of Charles' arms. "No. I mean people who _work_ here. I'm been working it out in my head for the past two days, because we need to up our game."

Charles grins. "Oh, yes, I should have thought of that! Good work, Erik. Who have you been thinking of?"

Erik taps his temple with his free hand, the other beginning to caress Charles' arm over his sleeve. "Azazel is a good choice; he has a thing for Raven, and we could use that to our advantage. Moira is another decent choice; she likes you, and we could use that, too. And then there's Angel, who is definitely with Darwin. Put it all together, and we have all the right people we need. Someone who can shield us, someone who can get keys and make excuses for us, and then someone who can give us knives if we need to defend ourselves."

"Brilliant, bloody brilliant!" Charles applauds verbally, wrapping his arms around Erik's neck and placing kisses along his jaw. "I knew I could entrust this to the great Magneto. You always thought of things I didn't before, and I'm glad that I have you on my side this time."

"I'll always be on your side, Charles," Erik whispers, and he captures Charles' lips in a rough kiss. Tongue entangle and tastes mingle. And even though Erik still has pizza on his breath, Charles finds it more satisfying than salmon and asparagus, and he hungrily returns the kisses as if his life depended on it.

Careful not to get caught, they turn off Erik's light in his ward and crawl onto the bed, keeping quiet as they slip out of their clothes and tangle their limbs together, rocking forward and bowing their backs until each of them finds the end he's looking for.

"I love you," one whispers, glasz eyes closed and firm lips pressed into the other's throat, waiting for the responding thrum of vocal chords.

"I never stopped loving you," the other replies, blue eyes half open and gazing at the blackness of the ceiling, arms wrapped tightly around the man collapsed on top of him.

And that's all that needs to be said. It instantly covers all of the bases: trust, loyalty, possession, and the unspoken, bonding promise to protect until the end; _I would die for you,_ spoken between the lines.

But Charles feels as though he's lying. He feels like he's keeping so much from Erik, because he has yet to tell Erik about his past. _This_ past, from _this_ reality. He feels as though it's wrong to keep secrets to the person he bears his entire soul to otherwise.

"Erik," he murmurs as they gather up their clothing and redress themselves, the sweat cooled and themes cleaned. "There's something I need to tell you. About me."

Erik quirks a brow. "Oh? Well, I'm sure it can wait, Charles. We need to meet the boys for dinner in twenty minutes. We must have dozed, because that analog clock on the wall is never wrong. It's synchronized with the rest of the clocks in the building, after all."

"Oh. Yes, right," the shorter brunet sighs. "Let us go, then. I'll tell you soon, though. Perhaps tomorrow? I could ask for a chess board, and we could see if we can play a round or two."

"Sounds perfect," Erik smiles, giving Charles one of his stunning, genuine smiles. It makes Charles feel even guiltier.

They throw out the evidence on tissues into a large waste bin and head for dinner in the cafeteria. Pills are handed out with their evening meal, and Charles stares at his for a long moment before taking them.

_Tomorrow,_ he thinks as he consumes the food on his tray. _Yes, it's going to be a good day for a lot of things. I'll confess my sins to Erik, he'll accept and love me despite them, and we can begin working our way up to the B-Wing by being extra good in therapy tomorrow and this week, and then, maybe in another week, I can be up another level and able to chat wit Moira. And in the meantime, Raven can convince Azazel and Darwin can speak to Angel, and all will be well. There's nothing to fear. Nothing can hinder us._

-0-

"Sebastian, sweetheart, is something the matter?" Emma asks as she zips the side of her skirt back up and dabs sweat from her brow with her nurse's apron. "You're a little out of it today. A little… _uncontrolled._ That isn't like you."

Shaw cracks a smile that looks insane, and it makes goosebumps rise on Emma's skin. He glances up from fixing the fly of his dress slacks and shakes his head, still smiling. "Everything is perfectly fine, my dear. All is well. In fact, I think I'm finally over my paranoia with Charles Xavier and his little plans and misdeeds. I think I'm even stable enough to start changing things around here. What do you say? Shall we change things?"

She eyes him warily, head tilted slightly and her mouth slack. "Uh…" She frowns, lips closing and eyes blinking. "Sure, Mr. Warden, if you say so. Where do we begin?"

"With the rules. I think we're too lax with them. I rather miss the old days where the patients were locked up more and roamed less, and took more drugs and had more therapy. The abuse was awful, no doubt about that, and the ignoring of basic needs was the worst, but who's to say we can't have more of a handle on them again?"

Nurse Frost shakes her head. "What? No, Sebastian. That isn't how to do things! I agree they might be out and about a little too much around their wings and to and from the bathrooms and showers and cafeteria, but you can't sedate them with medication too much; that's immoral," she retorts.

Shaw cocks his head. "Are you… _challenging_ me, Emma?" he asks in a too-soft voice. "Because, I thought I was being reasonable. I'm a _reasonable_ man, after all. I have expectations, and no one is quite meeting them, so I thought I might…" he clicks his tongue, smiling again. "Up the game, put more effort in. Do you think that I'm wrong?"

"No, but – but that _isn't_ the way to do it," she answers firmly. She narrows her eye at him. The blonde woman is far from being afraid of someone like _him;_ someone she just fucked, no less. "So perhaps I am 'challenging' you there, sugar."

"Oh?" He laughs darkly, stepping closer to her. He grabs a fistful of her hair and tugs her closer, relishing the yelp that sprouts from her lips. "So what, then? Do you think you can overthrow me? Do a better job as warden than I could? Get all my fame, my glory, for all of my patients? …Hmm? Steal my record number of patients released, _beat_ it? … _Hmm?_ Would you do that to me, Emma, _dear?_ Would you rob me of all that?"

She quite struggling and instead breaks his hold, risking pain and losing strands of hair as she bashes her forearm against his. He releases her, still grinning, and she sneers at him. "Yes, I think I could, _sir._ And I would do all that."

She sees it, now: Shaw has lost his mind. He hasn't changed, only gotten worse, his scheduled meeting with Charles today most likely having been the point of his psychotic break. He's power-hungry and obsessed with his patients like a meat corporation might be with its cattle: caring only enough to being in a profit. He disgusts her. She can't believe she's had sex with _that,_ had been half in love with _that_.

Emma calls in for the guards, and Shaw cackles as he's carted away, shouting how they can't run this place without him. He's thrown into a cell in the D-Wing, and put into a straight jacket to keep from fighting.

"You'll see, Emma, _dear,_ you'll see! Charles will run rampant without me around! He'll free everyone and we'll lose our government grants and everything will fall apart! What good can a woman do, anyhow? What good can _you_ do? This building is _me,_ and _I_ am this building, and its namesake – Schmidt – runs through my veins, is in my _ancestry_! –So what do you think happen if I'm locked away? What do you think will become of this place? It'll be Hell! Hell incarnate! And you'll only have yourself to blame… After all, I only have this facility's best interests at heart. Always. _Always_."


	10. Ooh, Ouchies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Who is Charles, really?" Erik whispers to himself.

"Please note that Sebastian Shaw was admitted to this hospital by nurse's request at eight-oh-three p.m. last night," acting warden, Emma Frost, lists off to the receptionist as she makes a new file for the man. "

"And what is his mental illness?" the woman asks over her cat-eye glasses and from under her messy bun.

Emma rolls her eyes, her hand on her hip. "You'll have to speak to his therapist, assigned Dr. William Stryker, about what exact illness is. He's being diagnosed this morning. Honestly, do I look like a shrink to you? I'm just a nurse. I see sickness and I try to heal it. That's all I'm doing here."

The receptionist mutters something about Emma not having to be rude under her breath, but clears her throat and continues writing things down. When the forms are mostly filled, she hands the file to an aid, which then runs the folder down to the File Room.

Pleased by the marker in Shaw's treatment, Emma smirks and turns on her shoe to click down the hallway to what is now _her_ office. And goodness, does it need a _makeover_! Some feminine touches are definitely called for. But she'll leave it as it is for now. She has other matters to deal with, financial and upkeep problems, like any warden would attend to.

And Emma loves the feel of it all; it's wonderful to part of something bigger than a nurse who looks after mentally sick folk. It's more gratifying to know that she's leading them instead of taking orders from them.

-0-

"Are you really going to try and escape, Armando?" Angel whispers as she has her ear pressed to his heart, listening to it beat where the stand in the empty, dimly lit cafeteria after hours one night. Angel wanted to volunteer and finally work here because she wanted to feel better about herself, it's true, but she also thought to come to an insane asylum of all places because Janos, one of the guards, is her cousin. He snuck Darwin into here for her while she cleaned up the kitchen, and is going to sneak him back to his room once she leaves.

"No, not me. My friends," he explains quietly. He kisses her hair and continues petting it, swaying to the beat of the music coming over the compact radio on the empty, clean lunch line a few yards away. They're dancing, sort of, and it's a comfort to him. "I don't think I could ever leave this place again, Angel. I know you want me to – and God, I would, for you, baby – but I can't. The outside world… it scares me too much after what I've been through. You could say I've developed agoraphobia," he jokes with a humorless chuckle, "But that's beside the point. I just want them to be happy."

She shakes her head. "Why are you even here?" she wants to know. "You seem just as sane as me, yet you're in the bottommost wing and never seem to get any higher than Logan."

Darwin sighs. "Yeah," he agrees. "I'm aware of that. I just… don't think I would do very well anywhere else. I want to make sure I stay here as long as I want to, and I want to stay here a while. And the best way to do that is make them think you aren't improving. So that's what I do: I keep safe behind these walls by pretending to be a little out of my mind. It isn't very hard, because half the time I feel that way. Post-traumatic stress disorder and all that."

Angel sighs. Pouting, she peers upward at him and says, "Still, it isn't fair. You're a wonderful man, Armando. You deserve to have something better than this."

"I have you, and that's all the 'better' I deserve, and all that I want anyway," he says with a smile. He kisses her plump, glossed lips and feels her eyelashes flutter. When they pull away, he grins. "Hey, how about a little jazz?" he asks. He walks with his long legs over to the radio, switches the channel, and snaps his fingers to a jazz song playing over its speakers. He does a few twirls, a few glides, and Angel covers her mouth with one hand, giggling.

When Darwin holds out his hand to her, she can't refuse. She swing-dances with him for a bit, clumsy in his strong arms, and she forgets everything negative for a while.

But then he ruins the moment as he spins her into his body, requesting: "Will you help them get away, Angel? They might need you, and they're the only friends I've had in this place, aside from you. I want to see them reach their goal, especially now that they've moved up so much in privilege."

She bites her bottom lip. Wouldn't it be wrong to aid psych ward patients in getting out before they're released? And didn't this same man tell her to do what's "right" not too terribly long ago?

"I'll think about it," she says.

But she fully intends on doing the right thing. And the right thing, in her mind, would be to play the Good Samaritan and inform the warden of any acts to escape, if the signals were given that they were moving out one day. They might hate her for it, because when they are caught, they will be knocked back down to the D-Wing, stripped of privileges again, but won't they thank her in the end once they have been released legally?

-0-

A month passes. Four and a half brief weeks. The time flies by without a bat of an eyelash by the patients of Schmidt's Home for the Mentally Unstable, because in a place as routine as this psychiatric institute has become, each day bleeds into the next, and it's only a matter of time before time becomes no matter whatsoever.

Emma has been warden for just as long, and she is a no-tolerance sort of ruler. She doesn't deal with bullshit. She is just as bad as Shaw, but in more sane ways, and doesn't play it nicey-nice when she's secret after ulterior motives like Shaw had before her. Instead, she is openly frank about her intentions. She isn't after power, nor a record of some sort. Instead, all she wants is perfection. She wants the patients to behave. She wants them to heal.

It's nearly a contradiction; where Sebastian Shaw was sneaky and plotting, Emma is a combination of both bitchy and caring. It's like a parent who will scold and treat their child to candy in the same token. It boggles the patients' minds (well, the ones who are paying attention, anyhow), and yet they prefer it to how things used to be.

Charles still hasn't told Erik about his past. He meant to, the night they supposed to play chess, but that was when Shaw got admitted in the D-Wing and Frost took over, and since then, he hasn't done a thing to try to get a game board or say a word about himself.

Although he did get bumped up to the B-Wing, Sean and Hank following his lead there. Although Alex and Erik remain in the C-Wing. And as for Raven…

"You have a visitor, Charles," Moira says sweetly through the slot in his door. She unlocks it, and in steps Raven, dressed in a pretty blue sweater-dress with a brown waist belt and dangling gold necklace on a chain in the shape of a thick, outlined heart. Her hair is done up in two French braids starting above her temples and meeting in back at the base of her neck in one thick, blonde braid. "You have as long as you like."

"Charlie," Raven says in a soft, calm voice. She's smiling gently and stepping with the grace of a cat as she comes near him, her shoes not making more than a soft pit-pat sound on his carpeted floor (he's rather thankful for the carpet in these B-Wing rooms; it makes things a lot warmer). "How are you?"

"Faring well, I suppose," Charles says, flabbergasted by her appearance. And more than that, her attitude. It's like a flawless merge of all the best qualities of both Raven and Mystique at once, flowing together to make this new creature that doesn't quite have a name. He wants to call her Lovely, though, because that's what she is. She's this lovely thing that is dominant like Mystique but sweet like Raven.

"That's good to hear," she says, grinning. She sits down near him and wraps her arms around him. "I've missed you! It's been weeks and weeks since I've seen you last." Raven is quick to kiss his cheek before he can say anything. She withdraws and searches his face, her eyes prying and clearer than Mystique's or Raven's ever have been before, since he's known both. It's wonderful, _sane,_ but frightening. "Do you like the B-Wing? I did when I was here, but the A-Wing is so much nicer." She hums, leaning away from him. "I'm going to be released this Friday. My last therapy session is tomorrow, for a final check-up of sorts. It's so weird to think about, isn't it? That after all this time, I'm suddenly… so close to being out of here."

"It is weird," Charles agrees quietly. He feels sorrow weighing down on him. "I… I wish you weren't leaving, Raven. I had thought –"

She throws her head back, laughing. "Oh, I know," she says, shaking her head once her laughter is gone, but her smile remains. "You wanted to escape and have me come with you and live with you in your little house. And I would love to, Charles, honestly I would, but it isn't going to work. Not this time, at least. I'm sorry." She brushes back some of his wavy brown locks from his face and taps his nose with her home-manicured fingernail. "But hey, I talked to Azazel for you," she adds in a lower voice, so not to be heard. She winks, her mascara making her lashes impossibly long and full. "He says that he will help you and up to _three_ others –" she raises three fingers, "–To escape, as long as I accepted his proposal."

"Proposal?" the brunet parrots. "You don't mean…" he says, cracking a smile and chuckling a little. "Raven!" He slaps his knee in amusement. "My little Raven is about to be _married_?"

She blushes and nods. "Yeah. Yeah, exactly that. Crazy, isn't it?" she jokes, and the joke stings, because Charles doesn't really feel any more sane than he was when he was in the D-Wing, and he isn't sure what the boundaries are between being in the right and wrong states of mind are anymore. Is he insane by society's standards, or his own? Does one matter more than the other? He isn't sure.

He laughs anyway, though, and nods. "That's wonderful, truly. I wish it were under different circumstances, but to have a man love and support you? That's perfect."

She nods. "It is. And I accepted, and so you will see me again soon enough. Within a month, I should hope!" Raven says, almost praying for it. She stands. "Anyhow, I just wanted to say goodbye to you now, before I miss my chance tomorrow and leave the following morning." She touches his shoulder. "I love you, Charles. You've been a big brother and a guide to me this entire time, and I really appreciate it."

He takes her hand and kisses it, reminiscent of that moment on the beach in his other life. "I'm happy to have been a help to you, love."

The blonde's eyes water, and she blinks it away before it ruins her makeup. "I have to say something else, though."

"And what is that?" Charles asks kindly, his large baby blues sinking into hers.

She looks away. "I'm sorry, I really am, because I don't believe in your story anymore. I honestly don't think a word of it is real. An incarnate past, or different reality? That's Sci-Fi stuff." She smiles a bit, glancing back at him, trying to overlook the hurt in his face. "But… if I have a baby boy, I still want to name him Kurt like in your story. It's a good, strong name. And I want some special way to remember my times in here. –Or what I _can_ remember of my times in here. Half of it was a blur, scattered from days of sleeping or being someone else or too medicated." She sighs.

Then Raven is brushing back his bangs, kissing his forehead, and waving as she walks out of his ward.

"Goodbye, Raven," he says, a smile on his face, tears down his cheeks, and an odd feeling of happiness for her well-being and sadness from her leaving filling his chest, clenching his throat up tight.

When she's out of sight, Charles wonders if he should abandon his escape attempt and get through this normally. She was able to do it; why can't he? Why can't he pretend that he never received the memories he did and never felt the need to trust them and never wrote them all down in a memoir and never shared them with others?

Why can't he be considered mentally stable and still be _himself,_ both of his selves?

Because the reason why he's here…

Charles stands abruptly from his bed and exits his still open door. He ventures down the hallway until he locates Moira.

"Nurse?" he asks politely, smiling at her. "Miss MacTaggert, may I ask a favor of you?"

She turns and looks questioningly at him. "Anything, Charles. What would you like?"

His smile is off-center and nervous in a shakily happy way as he answers, "A chess board with a full set of black and white pieces, please. I would like to play it against Erik in the C-Wing."

"I can arrange that," she smiles. "Especially now that a fellow nurse is the warden. I'll get right on it for you."

"Thank you, Moira." And he takes her hands and kisses it for additional good measure, and when she blushes, he knows that he's going to get precisely what he wants.

And he's never been more and least prepared for the same act before in his life. He needs to get it out, tell someone, and perhaps move on, like Raven. And who better than his lover?

-0-

"Sean," Alex breathes, standing in Sean's B-Wing doorway, glancing at the slightly larger room and the carpeted flooring and the sunny yellow walls. He looks up, and he's sturdy like brick on the outside, but on the inside, the Summers boy is trembling. "Hey."

The redhead smiles. He stands and walks over to Alex, wrapping his arm around the blond with the blond returns the gesture on Sean's other side in a short bro-hug. When they let go of one another, Alex is smiling.

"You look great. You're healthy and there's color in your face," Alex murmurs. "I haven't seen you in a long while. I hate that the first two lettered wings are so separated from the last two. It means I hardly get to see you, and it sucks. I miss you, and Hank, too," Alex mutters. "But… at least Erik and I have been getting closer. He's like a dad to me, you know? He's stern and a little grumpy, but totally awesome."

Sean nods. He opens his mouth, and he wants to say something simple. Something only like, 'That's good to hear.' He's only been progressing this far since the D-Wing because he's been writing out a lot more things to his therapist and acting on his very best behavior with the staff and other patients, but he still hasn't spoken a single word. So he tries to, right here and now. Seeing Alex again after so long, after _weeks_ – it inspires him, in a way. It makes him want to speak.

Alex's eyes widen and he leans in. "H-hey, man, are you trying to…" And he drifts off. "'Cause you don't have to, not on my account."

Sean shakes his head. _I want to. I want you to be the first one to hear my voice, whenever it comes,_ he thinks to himself. He clenches his hands in frustration with himself. How hard is it to locate his voice again?

Sighing, Sean swings an arm back in a welcoming sign, permitting Alex into the room. Alex toes off his slipper-shoes and feels the carpet, soft under his feet, and moves over to the bed. He falls backward, landing on it with his feet hanging off the side, and laughs. "You're so spoiled, man. And if you have it this good, those guys up in A-Wing must be treated like royalty!"

Sean laughs. He actually _laughs,_ not his usual silent shakes, and it's a squeaky and rough sound, like rusted gears trying to move again, but it's a _noise_ and as soon as it passes, it startles them both.

"Sean!" Alex exclaims, leaping into sitting position. "You… you made a sound!" He could cry. He laughs breathlessly and gets back up to his feet, hugging the redhead again. "This is great!"

The freckled boy nods, smiling broadly. _But I want to do more than just this. I'm tired of not progressing. I've accepted so much about what happened to me, you don't even know. And now… Now I just want to be able to tell you anything, like a joke, or a secret, or something else that normal friends would say. And I want to ask why you're not here with me, why they're keeping you in C-Wing._

Sean musters up the strength to pull out of the hug and open his mouth again, closing it, swallowing, and when he opens it again…

"I… I'm… g-glad you… came to s-see me, A-Alex," Sean slowly stutters and sounds out, his voice raspy and cracking from misuse, and his words faint. It's hardly a voice at all; it's akin to his laugh, rusty gears all over again, but it's understandable and beautiful to hear.

Alex _does_ cry this time. His eyes tear up and he laughs again, nearly hysterically, with how joyous he is. He would rejoice to some deity if he still believed in one. Instead, he holds Sean close and kisses his shaggy orange hair and squeezes him.

"We need to tell someone. We need to share this, need to –" Alex rambles, pulling back to look into Sean's eyes as he clutches the sides of Sean's head. "Is this the first time you've spoken at all? Even to your shrink?"

Sean nods. "Y-yeah."

"…You did it again! I don't think I can get used to that," Alex jokes, dropping his hands. His mind is racing a mile a minute. "No, but – seriously, they need to know. This is big, Sean! Really big. Come on, let's go find someone. And you can talk for them. And –"

Sean grips one of Alex's hands, stopping the blond in his tracks. "Only… if you're th-there with me," Sean says very quietly. He swallows, his throat already aching from the strain after so long. He does the sign language signal for 'water' and drops Alex's hand. He retrieves his bottle of water from his nightstand and chugs half of it before wiping his rosy lips. His grassy-green orbs pan over to Alex once more. "But, Alex… a-are we still… going to escape…?"

"That was the plan, yeah," the blond mutters, his tone falling a few octaves. He sounds guilty. "That's… kind of why I came to see you. I wanted to know if we were still doing it. I was going to go see Charles next, while I still had time to visit with him, too." He sighs, running a hand through his short hair. His silvery blue eyes are back on Sean. "Do you think we should? You talking kind of changes things, but also kind of doesn't. It's almost _more_ of a reason to leave, but… it's also a reason to stay."

And the former mute knows precisely what the other boy means. He nods. "Let's just… g-go find my ps-psychologist and… show h-him."

"Yeah, okay. Can do, man," Alex agrees. He takes Sean by the hand and they walk out of Sean's ward that way, and no one really gives them a passing glance, even as they locate the therapist's office and knock. When they go in, all Sean says is 'hi' and the man at the desk jerks backward, shocked but overjoyed, and leaves to retrieve Sean's file.

When he returns, he asks Sean a few questions that Sean steadily answers, water by his side to keep him going and Alex by his other side to keep him strong. And it all goes down in the file, and the man smiles and tells sean, "Congratulations, Sean. Within a week, you'll be in A-Wing because of this sort of progress, as long as you keep speaking to others and don't regress."

"I-I can do that… sir," the redhead promises. "Too much… has happened… a-and I c-can't be qu-quiet anymore."

And that's all Alex needs to hear to solidify his decision: he's getting out of here for Sean, because Sean deserves a real life. He's _earned_ it. And to make up for his own sins, Alex thinks the best restart he can have is to give Sean that, and do right by him.

-0-

"Why are you here, Shaw? Why are you suddenly one of us?" Erik growls through the slot in Shaw's door. He's not supposed to be down here in the D-Wing, but he had to finally come by and meet his former warden, the man he despised so much for so long because he's the man who admitted Erik into his institute, and he's the source of some of Erik's misery. But what really bothers Erik, what really boils his blood and sets him on edge is the fact that Shaw personally targeted Charles and threatened Charles' plans.

The older man brings himself to the door and peers through the slot, only his crinkled eyes visible. Erik can tell that he's smirking. " _Why?_ Oh, 'why' _fucking_ Xavier is 'why!' I hate that little manipulative fucker. He has you all fooled really well, doesn't he? Makes you all believe that you're special, that you were mutants or some shit, me included, me as a _villain!_ And isn't it strange, Lehnsherr, that he made me _you_ enemy in his story? To get you on _his_ side when you came here? Pretty suspicious if you ask _me._ "

"Well I'm _not_ asking you, Shaw," Erik spits back. "I'm only asking why you're a patient, and have been for a month! It can't all be because of Charles. He didn't _wish_ this on you. None of us saw it coming, so why don't you indulge me with a little tale about your insanity?"

" _Paranoia,_ " Shaw corrects smugly. "And it's enthralling, really. It starts with a tiny, dark voice in my head talking about the better of our kind, the _insane_ kind, and it ends with Charles making a mess of things and me going out of my way to stop him. They say I might be a little schizophrenic, but I don't think so. I think it's just my conscience speaking, or maybe common sense, or perhaps even my inner desires. Whatever the case, it led me here, and I can't say I regret a thing." And he's grinning again.

"…You're extremely troubled," Erik sneers, backing away from the door. "I'm never speaking to you again."

"Too bad!" Shaw yells after him as Erik starts to go down the corridor, "Because I thought you might say something when I got out of my cell and _killed_ Xavier!"

Erik stops cold in his tracks and spins on his heel, storming back in long, angry strides. "What the fuck did you just say?"

Shaw smirks. "Nothing, nothing. You should really be on your way, Lehnsherr."

Erik whips out his shank, the same one he's kept since the first couple days he's been here, keeping it on his person in case of emergencies, and point it through the slot, right up to Shaw's neck below his chin. "I could kill you right here and now, Shaw, with this door closed."

Sebastian slinks away form the door and cowers on his bed. Erik peers down in through the slot. He shoots a glare at the older man, who seems equally intrigued and terrified. _Sicko._

"I don't doubt that, m'boy," Shaw replies swiftly, "But not now, not yet. You'll no doubt spill my blood one of these days, but I'd like to think it will be in a fit of rage after I've slain your fuck-buddy. And don't deny what he is, Lehnsherr! I know all too well what he means to you. I'm not stupid; I've read Xavier's little 'memoir.' And in it he quite clearly stated how you two are with one another, and I can only imagine how he's persuaded you into acting the same way as in his fantasy."

"You _shut_ your filthy, lying _mouth_!" Erik roars. He pounds on the grated glass of the window and puts a crack in it and cuts his hand as the fist he uses to pound on it is the one still holding his hand-made weapon. It slices through the meat of his palm and his blood splatters and drips down the glass and the dirty white of the metal door.

"Ooh, ouchies," Shaw says. He shakes his head. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, Lehnsherr. You shouldn't play with metals, especially sharp ones. And you _really_ should watch that temper of yours. If I were still the warden, I would put you back in the D-Wing and into solitary confinement for behavior like that. I'd report you now, but no one would believe me," he says, shrugging. "Ah, well~."

"I hate you," Erik growls. "I hate you so fucking much."

Shaw nods. "Yes, yes, I supposed you would. You did in Charles' story, anyhow. What rubbish that all is. Still, it makes me wonder… how did he know your name before you were ever admitted here? And the number he said was written on your arm from the Holocaust… how did he know that was going to be your patient number here as well? Sometimes it doesn't add up. Sometimes, I almost thought he might be telling the truth, and that's when he angered me the most. That's when I resented him the most. Because he always seemed to be a step ahead of me, knowing about people like Hank McCoy before the boy even came here…"

And this is where Erik can't handle a word more. He needs to leave. His hand is burning and stinging when he hadn't felt the jagged edge when it happened, and now he needs medical care. But beyond that… he can't stomach listening to Shaw's ranting.

Because that last bit… it both confirms and denies all the doubts Erik has been pondering over with Alex for the past couple weeks when they've been resorting to speaking to one another daily without their usual friends near enough to chat with.

Alex told Erik all the things he said to Hank the day in the cafeteria over a month ago. And Erik told Alex the same things he was thinking that very same day because of how Alex reacted. And between the two, they started to question so much about their beloved leader-figure.

"Who is Charles, really?" Erik whispers to himself.

He then finds a nurse, stopping her in the hall, and asks her to patch him up. He dumped the shank in a garbage can somewhere, and when she asks how his hand got to bad, he tells her that he has an accident with his door. She believes him, cleans his wound, bandages him, and sends him on his way.


	11. Coaxing the Nurse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So please, Nurse MacTaggert, I beg of you: help me to escape. Help free me of this prison."

A short week passes by. That's all it takes for Moira to arrange a chess game, buying a board herself and asking for a decent number of visitation hours for patients between the B- and C-Wings, and for Charles to come to more than one decision.

"Ah, thank you, Moira," Charles says warmly as he takes the box from her, plastic chess pieces inside of it jangling around, shifting and colliding with one another. It's music to his ears, almost as much as his typewriter. He misses using it; he wonders if, perhaps, he should write another memoir, one entirely about his currently life, just to have something to write… He clears his throat. "Oh, and, Moira? Might I have a word with you before you scuttle off?"

"Oh, sure! Of course, Charles. What's on your mind?" she asks brightly, pivoting and returning to him from the doorway.

"I… had been wondering a few things," he begins, peering down at the box as he sets the game aside. He takes her hands in his and looks deeply into her eyes, endless blue orbs meeting clear brown ones. No tricks, no mind-games; he wants to be open and honest with her. She deserves that much. "First of which being: am I correct in picking up your feelings for me? Do you… love me, Moira?"

She takes a sharp inhale of breath and removes her hands from his, choosing to clasp them together and wring them. Moira had worried that she was being too obvious, more-so than what saner people were picking up. _But then again,_ the nurse thinks quickly, _Charles is saner now, isn't he? He's in the B-Wing._ She sighs, peering back at him. "Yes," she says faintly. She tires again, stronger this time. "Yes, I do. Nurses should never fall for the patients because it always ends badly, and – and I _know_ that you feel something for Mr. Lehnsherr, but I – I couldn't help myself." She huffs a laugh and tacks some of her hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he says softly, smiling minutely and lightly touching her cheek with the barest of grazes as he sweeps back the chunk of strands she missed when pulling them behind her ear. He curls his fingers, fingertips skimming her ear as he finishes pinning her hair away from her face. She feels hot, his touch like calming fire. "No one can withhold their feelings for another, no matter who or what they may be. You aren't wrong in feeling something for me." He says. And then, with a joking smile, he adds, "After all, my charm can be overwhelming and addicting, can it not?"

Moira laughs, but tears are beginning to well in her eyes. Her heart strains beneath her sternum, and she idly places a hand atop her blouse, above her breasts. She can feel the thudding, the aching. She shakes her head. "It can," she agrees. She slowly exhales and dabs her eyes. "What a mess this is."

"Not at all," Charles contradicts smoothly. He ducks and tilts his head to remain in her gaze even as she's looking away. He replaces one of his hands over hers. "In fact, it's very helpful. You help me often because you love me, and for that, I am eternally grateful to you, Moira. There is just… one thing more of you I wish to ask. One final thing."

She looks at him, queries flickering in her eyes, and she looks desperate, as if she would be willing to do anything for him no matter what the cost. It makes Charles' own heart break a little. Because sometimes he _doesn't_ like manipulating people, and the guilt is just around the edges, like the blurs around a dream.

He lowers his gaze to their hands, and he brings up his other hand to clench hers tightly, but not painfully. "Moira," he begins quietly, voice growing stronger as he lifts his eyes to meet hers once more. "I need you to help me to escape."

She immediately rips her hands from his again, but this time, there is shock mingled with horror and further questions written across her face. "You… you want me to _what?_ But Charles, you're nearly there! You're in B-Wing, you can –"

He shakes his head sadly. " _Moira._ I know you're cleverer than that. You know all too well that I am not here because I progressed an inch; all I did was stop outwardly fighting. But inside, I have been fighting all along for freedom." He looks despairingly honest as his brows curve and lift, his precious blue eyes almost sparkling in the fluorescents as he starts to cry. And it's not an act; Moira has seen his fake tears before, and these are not them. They are pure and frighteningly heart-wrenching. His voice cracks as he tells her honestly, "I'm not crazy. Please, Moira, you have to believe me; I'm not insane. I am perfectly capable of being out in the world. I should have never come here, despite what I did. That was a moment of insanity, yes, but I am not insane now. What is deemed as delusions is something else entirely, I assure you. So _please,_ Nurse MacTaggert, I beg of you: help me to escape. Help free me of this prison."

She stares at him for an immeasurable length of time before she finally inhales slowly and gives him a collected response. "…I will help you, Charles," she whispers. She offers a small smile. "Now then, why don't you head for the C-Wing and play chess with Mr. Lehnsherr? He's waiting, you know."

"Bless you, Moira," Charles utters sincerely, chuckling a bit as he grasps her hand, shakes it, and wipes his tears. "Surely you are an angel sent from Heaven for me. Bless you." And he leans forward, capturing her in a locking embrace before pulling back and kissing her forehead sweetly.

She could cry all over again. She doesn't know how she holds it in. Moira only knows that the man she fell in love with is thanking her after he asked for too much, and even though she knows she will be fired or worse over this (because Emma Frost is more forgiving than Sebastian Shaw, but not too much more forgiving that she would let this slide whatsoever), this close contact is reward enough for her misdeeds, she thinks.

-0-

"I'm moving up to the A-Wing. I'm going to be released soon, they tell me," Hank informs Alex where they sit side-by-side in the cafeteria for lunch. He rubs his hands together and exhales exaggeratedly. He shakes his head, brown hair flipping this way and that. He needs a haircut. "Are you mad?"

Alex grunts disjointedly. He refuses to look at Hank, even as he feels the slightly older boy's gaze on him. "Whatever. Do what you want, Hank. I can't boss you around or force you into doing shit just because I want you to." He rubs one of his eyes. He's _not_ crying, not again. "So I'm not mad, no. I'm just kinda jealous and pissed off. And no, being pissed off isn't the same as being angry with someone. Being pissed off doesn't last as long, isn't as deep-seated. I'll stoop being pissed at you sooner or later. But being _mad_ is like holding a mini-grudge against someone, and that just isn't me. Not anymore, anyway."

"Thank you, then," the other boy replies softly. He looks away. "Hey, Alex," he starts slowly, "Did you know what was my favorite subject in school?"

"That's a rhetorical question," Alex retorts. "So just answer it for me."

"I loved science. Biology especially, but chemistry was a close second. Everything about the science field – physics, astronomy, everything about the universe and how it works – fascinated me. I hardly cared about history or English or law or art or anything else normal kids liked. All I cared about was the science of it all. And do you know why?" Hank tells the other boy, and again, he's asking rhetorically. As he glances at the blond, his heart skips a beat, because Alex is peering back with just as much attention as Hank is giving him. Hank blushes.

"…Does this have a point?" Alex says in the silence. "'Cause I still have yet to get food, and I'm hungry."

"Oh. Right. Sorry," hank apologizes, blushing redder. He looks down at his hands. "Well, um… I loved science because it explained things. It was complex. It held the structure of the universe together while at the same time, dissected the universe for better understanding. It was my religion. It was what I believed in. Science was… constantly advancing and changing, but it still always made sense. And that's why I loved it: it helped make everything comprehensible, even when my life was messed up or hitting a rough patch or tearing apart."

Alex looks at Hank in a new light, and it makes Hank's blush flare back up after having left during his speech. And then the blond has the gall to go and say, "So is that what you're going to do once you're released? Make sense of the world by going back to school, to college, and studying the sciences?"

The brunet boy nods. "Yes. But there's something I want you to know, Alex."

"Eh? And what's that?" Alex snorts, reclining back in his chair, hands laced behind his head.

Hank looks dead serious as he tells his friend: "Science has yet to rule out other realities and dimensions and parallel universes. The ideas started as theories, and they remain as theories for the time being, but it's possible that some special case of proof will come along sooner or later and make those theories into _theorems."_ He rubs his hands together again, nervously speaking his next words, "I'm not saying Charles is right or sane. I'm not saying that my belief in the chances being slim to none that we are mirrors of some other existence has changed; but… I _am_ saying that you shouldn't lose faith, Alex. Especially not in a friend you plan to escape with. And I think…" He smiles oddly, looking down at the lunch table. "I think you should give yourself and Charles a chance to get out of here and either prove the theories or at least find a better life in place of them. Because I… I want you to have a better life, Alex."

"Okay," Alex says, fully understanding. He places a hand over Hank's in Hank's lap. The brunet's heart thuds in his chest as their eyes meet, and Alex has a teeny smile on his thin lips. "Thanks, Beanstalk. For everything."

And Hank can only laugh, breathless and awkward, and feel his insides bubble giddily as Alex returns the laughter. And soon Hank is by himself at the table, Alex in the lunch line to get food, and Hank is left to wonder: did he reap the seeds of doubt in Alex, or sew in new ones?

-0-

Moira, Azazel, and Angel; three people, through the link of others, whom Charles can trust to get him out of this psychiatric ward safely, with at least three others in tow. He's planning for the escape to be this weekend, when the staff is minimal and Emma is most distracted by the weekly wrap-up reports and her own impatience for the days to end so she can go out on some date or to some place or another for some stress-relieving, drunken fun (and sex, most likely).

He marches down the hallway, game box under his arm, and stops before Erik's door. It's open, a guard nearby ready to lock it again, and Charles salutes the man with two fingers before smirking and heading inside.

Erik is seated at a small card table, but it will suit this purpose just as well. The guard locks the door, walks away, and Charles sets the box on his chair as he removes his jacket and places it on the back of the chair. He takes out the chessboard, unfolds it, and sets up the cheap plastic pieces.

"They're letting you wear your own clothes again?" Erik inquires with a smile. He's still confined to pajamas, but they are least his own pair, since the C-Wing allows that much.

"Yes. My 'progress' in B-Wing is that far," Charles says with a smile. "And Moira just agreed today to help us escape. And that would make all three that we needed ready and willing for our plan to take action. With Hank being released soon, he doesn't wish to tag along, but I still have Sean and Alex on my side as far as I know, and therefore, the plan can be activated. We can escape this weekend, perhaps on Saturday evening, around mealtime," he relays as he sits down and moves his first pawn.

Erik's return grin couldn't be more delighted or mischievous. " _Exceptional."_ He moves his own pawn, and watches as Charles moves another, and then Erik follows suit. "You, my friend, are a wonder."

But Charles doesn't miss the tweak in the former metalbender's smile, and worse yet, the shift in his eyes, a flash of suspicion, and the feeling of distrust that Charles senses from his lover make him feel ill.

Hesitantly, Charles moves his knight, his fingers lingering on the horse's mane before releasing the piece. "Erik, I haven't been entirely honest with you about myself."

"No, you really haven't, Charles," Erik answers darkly, his tone guarded. "Would you mind telling me who you really are?"

"I'm Charles Xavier, of course," he answers shakily, watching as Erik captures Charles' knight with his bishop, and Charles hadn't even noticed that the path was clear for that. Shit.

"No, I don't mean your fucking _name._ I mean your _past,_ **this** past. Who are you, and _what_ have you done?" Erik all but snarls, and Charles winces visibly.

He hangs his head, sighing. "I know. I know that's what you meant. Please, Erik, let me explain –"

"You had better!" the other man responds fiercely, pounding the weak table with a fist. He leans forward, and his face takes on a new expression than that of rage. "I want to believe in you, Charles," he says, brows inclined sincerely and his tone heartfelt. "I want to love all of you without being afraid of what you're keeping from me. I don't want to doubt you. I want to be able to trust you. So yes, please, explain, because I can't handle another fucking moment of people 'warning' me about you, and myself pondering you and your true intentions!"

Charles' mouth fell open at some point, and for a moment, he feel as though he might cry for a second time today. He inhales and exhales as carefully as possible, and he means to begin his tale, but instead, a questions slips out of his mouth too soon for him to catch it between his teeth. "Who has been warning you about me?"

Erik looks conflicted, face contorting, and then he drops his gaze with a disgusted click of his tongue. "Tch. That bastard, _Shaw;_ that's who. I saw him last week, and he made me question you when I didn't want to. I hate him. He threatened you. And he threatened me _by using_ you. He essentially said that I shouldn't listen to a thing you say." When his eyes reconnect with Charles', the intensity and bizarre clarity of his gaze nearly stops Charles' heart, and it definitely makes his breathing cease for a short minute. "Which means you had better quell my fears, Charles. You had better give me reason to listen to you, because I don't want to believe his words. I want to believe yours. I want to be on your side, never his. But I can't unless you start telling the truth. The _whole_ truth."

Charles closes his eyes, tears trickling down and splashing on the table. He inhales shakily, sucking the air in as if it were his last breath, and flicks his king, toppling it. "Then we best save this chess game for another time. Because what I have to tell you, the parts of me I have to show you… They aren't conducive to playing chess. They will distract too much from the game. Thus, for now, I am surrendering."

The taller man nods, accepting this. He stands and moves to his bed, sitting down on its more forgiving surface than the stiffness of his chair. He gestures for Charles to join him, and then crosses his arms over his chest. "Start talking."

Charles sighs. He sits down and fiddles with the bottom of his vest, eyes trained to his hands as he bares his sins to the man he trusts with his life and his heart. "It began, I suppose, when I was seven years old, and we had a man visit the house, telling us that my father was KIA."

"Killed in action?" Erik murmurs. "What did he do for a living?"

Charles smiles sadly, eyes briefly panning upward before dropping back down. "He was a police officer, and a damn good one. I held so much respect for him and the work he did, catching bad guys and helping lock them away. He was tough and yet kind. He was a great father when he could be one, and a great officer when he wasn't. He didn't come home very often; he was on the main force for my hometown near the city. New York City, that is," Charles explains. He lifts a hand to rub his brow. "It was a sunny day. _Too_ sunny. I wish it had been raining, or even storming. I wish it had been nighttime. Anything darker than the unfittingly sunny day that it was when the man came. He had been my father's partner. They were friends. And it crushed him to deliver the news to us."

Erik sinks against the flimsy wooden headboard of his ward's twin-sized bed and hugs his own arms, steeling himself, preparing to hear the worst.

And what he hears he honestly had expected, not to come from someone as endearing and charismatic as Charles Francis Xavier. Such a past… Erik expects of someone like himself, but of Charles? Insane or not, nothing could ready him for all that he is about to absorb into his memory.


	12. The Truth About Charles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik's lips part. His voice is even and belies nothing as he utters, "Go on. Who is the other man?" 
> 
> Charles sighs and bites his bottom lip. "Kurt Marko, my stepfather," Charles answers coldly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Contains gore.

_"It was such an ugly robbery, Sharon," the man told his mother. Charles wandered into the room, a questioning look on his face. Neither of the adults noticed he was there. The man went on, "God, you wouldn't believe how ugly. I don't mean to be graphic, but there was a lot of blood. The hostages they were holding at the bank were killed, nearly every last one of them, because we rushed in too early before the S.W.A.T. team could come in. And your husband… He was so brave. I wish I had been as brave as him. He boldly went right up to the, and – and I couldn't cover him fast enough, couldn't save him from the hidden accomplice's bullets –"_

_And the man started to cry, and it puzzled Charles at first. Why was a grown man crying? And why was he in Charles' house? …Where was Daddy?_

_Her voice was tattered and frail as she called out, "Charlie? Charlie, sweetie, please come –"_

_"I'm here, Mommy," the young boy said as he stepped into the room. "What's going on? Did something bad happen? You both look sad…"_

_"I'm afraid that your father is dead, kiddo," the man with teary eyes told him. He watched his mother open up his arms, and he walked into them, standing between her legs where she sat on the couch in front of him. He stroked her back with rubbery fingers on chubby, childish hands, and he felt smaller than he ever has before. He knew in that instant that he had to grow up, because his mother needed protecting and couldn't be kept safe and comforted without Daddy around._

_So he made a pact with himself. Charles was only seven, it's true, but he knew some things. He knew plenty of things. And one thing he knew was that there always had to be a man in a household, because men are the ones who take care of their women and children. And there it was, his pact: he was going to swear on his life that he would be the man of the house from then on._

_Even as his mother wept in his arms against his soft, undeveloped chest, he knew that he could do it, too. He knew that he could be the man of the house for her, a warrior and a hero._

_The man – "Your father's work partner," Sharon later explained – left then, saying that Mom was in good hands, and told them to start thinking of a date and time for hold the wake, funeral, burial, all of it. He said that he knew it was too soon to think about, but to keep it in mind, because the people at the station already have ideas since they respected Charles' father so much and want to honor him properly, a real soldier's funeral, because police officers like him, they knew, are the sort that are fight just as much as any member of the army, and protect just as severely._

_And so it went: Charles comforted his mother, Charles went to the funeral in a little black suit, and Charles went with his mother to collect the life insurance money his father left them in a will he wrote secretly in case this sort of thing happened while he was on duty._

_And Charles kept his pact. He kept it…_

-0-

"I kept it until another man came into my mother's life," Charles goes on, Erik oddly quiet and expressionless, listening with a face as blank as an empty sketchbook. Charles wishes that he could see more than abstract colors in Erik's mind; he wishes he had stronger powers than this, or at least enough to make out some of what Erik must be thinking in this instant.

Erik's lips part. His voice is even and belies nothing as he utters, "Go on. Who is the other man?"

Charles sighs and bites his bottom lip. "Kurt Marko, my stepfather," Charles answers coldly. He shakes his head, and pain is in his voice now, a pain that is so deep that Erik can practically _feel_ the scars, _sense_ the ache in Charles' chest, Erik swallows and maintains his poker face as he listens to this new part of the story.

-0-

_This time, it was raining._

_The downpour was without end, and there wasn't a flash now rumble of lightning or thunder in sight or sound. But the rain was enough. It was brooding and angry and the droplets were the largest Charles had even seen them as they splashed down on his deck. He lookout out the screen door, the glass one leading to the outer wooden structure peeled back like the skin of a banana._

_Kurt Marko came in through the front door, back from his honeymoon with Sharon, and now she wasn't Xavier but she was Marko as well, and Charles hated it. He refused to be Charles_ Marko. _It was disgusting and stupid, so he kept his father's name, Xavier. It made him feel better, still like the man of the house. Still like half the man his father had been, because genetically, Charles_ is _half of his father._

_Charles' babysitter during the honeymoon leaves, a kind old neighbor from next door who came in place of the two relatives that could have watched Charles but had things come up in place of it._

_And the second Sharon went upstairs to bathe after the jetlag of the plane ride, her suitcases in Marko's hands, the first signs appeared._

_Marko smirked, tossed the suitcases down, and ordered Charles to carry them upstairs._

_"But Mr. Marko," Charles retorted, "I'm only ten. I'm not strong enough."_

_"You fucking liar. You're just a lazy-ass who doesn't want to do work! Get up off that lazy ass of yours and carry these to your mother's room,_ now! – _And don't you fucking dare call me anything but 'sir'!"_

_Charles wanted to be more defiant, but instead, he stood, grabbed the suitcases, muttered, "Yes, sir," frostily under his breath, and proved his actual strength and activity._

_It only got worse, of course._

_Charles' poor mother didn't know what she married. She didn't realize that he was only after all her saved money and never loved her, only played the part. She also didn't realize the temper Marko had, nor did she ever imagine the sort of verbal and physical violence he was capable of committing._

_He abused the pair of them in any way he saw fit. He would bark orders at Charles, whom would in turn passive-aggressively get revenge some other time, and at one point, Charles stopped fighting back. But he wasn't breaking his pact; no, no. He would never. No, instead of fighting back even indirectly, Charles began to let a seed grow in the pit of his stomach._

_It was a seed of hatred._

_Charles buried all of his feelings in a hole so pitch black it would make the crevasses of the mighty ocean seem bright. He let each slap, each kick, each bruise and cut turn into another scar to add to his collection and another moment to file away for future reference._

_He let all of his pent-up abhorrence and wrath escalade within him, the seed blossoming into a deeply rooted seed of damn near evil. It was vile and rotten and sickening. Some days, Charles actually vomited because he was so ill with the bottled-up emotions and plotting ideas. So, for a while, he stopped eating._

_Meanwhile, his mother stopped eating, too. She stopped as soon as her skin became bruised so many times and her will so chopped to bits that she was left with nothing, reduced to a wastoid, a pile of pieces that were sore to the touch. She was crippled, in a manner of speaking; Sharon was unable to feel even a glimmer of happiness. Everything was fleeting, and she was so docile in Marko's presence that Charles began to wonder if she was even his mother any longer, because she sure as Hell didn't act like the woman he knew._

_And he realized then that he had failed her, especially had failed his own pact made to himself regarding her. The seed, the tree, wasn't enough. He needed to fight again, or he would lose her._

_But, being only fourteen, he didn't act soon enough._

_His mother brought an end to her life before he could save her._

-0-

"Suicide?" Erik whispers, emotion back on his face. "She couldn't handle the abuse that much that she felt the need to destroy herself?"

"She was already destroyed," Charles says, waving a hand off to the side, his expression hard and his eyes wet. "All she did was make her existence precisely as Marko saw it: as nothing. All she did was make his words to her true. 'You're worthless, you're nothing, you can never please me, you're just a waste of time and space.' – He only said a few of these things a few times, but that was all it took. One bout of rage, one rant spit in her face while he was sober or drunk, it didn't matter, that was all that was needed to make her believe that killing herself would be the best option for everyone." Charles' tone shifts to something so heavy with regret and grief that it catches Erik's off-guard and makes his breath hitch. "She never once considered me, and never once thought to ask me for a hand, nor tell me it was all right if I did something. Her fear of him was too great."

"My own mother committed suicide," Erik utters quietly, his voice hoarse with unshed tears. "She wasn't driven to it because of abuse, however. She –"

"I read your file," Charles whispers. "I do background checks on everyone new here, even if I never meet them. I like knowing about others. It helps me forget about myself," Charles explains quietly. He looks up. "So I already know. She died that way because she was in too thick a depression to see any hope in life, and couldn't feel joy even from her own son any longer, similar to my mother. Except, in your mother's case, she was depressed because her husband died in a factory accident, and she loved him too terribly much."

Erik nods, tears dropping silently from the corners of his eyes. "Yes," he croaks. "That's why. She loved him, and the moment he died, something shattered within her. She could have been insane as well, I suppose. Enough that she felt the need to hang herself from my favorite birch tree in the backyard. I came home from high school, junior year, and found her. It was mere months after my father's own untimely death at the factory. It was a slaughterhouse, as you must know," he grunts, wiping his eyes and folding his arms. "And accidents there are of the worst sort."

Charles nods. His voice is empathetic and tired as he replies, "I know."

Erik swallows, fearing the answer to his next question. Their eyes connect like the red threads of fate, and they don't care break the contact as Erik asks what he has to, and Charles answers as he must. "What did you do after her death?"

Charles shakes his head slowly, eyes still on Erik's. "Promise not to hate me, Erik. Please, promise me. I need to know that you will not hate me once I tell you." And his eyes are unclear, fogged with tears.

Erik grasps Charles' hands, kisses them all over, and squeezes them tightly. "After all of the people I have wounded or maimed or murdered, I doubt a thing you can say will faze me, Charles. I will love you no matter what. I will always be the worst one between us, in any lifetime. Nothing you could have done can be as twisted as the things I have done, because your reasons are always better than mine. More logical, more thoughtful. All you ever do is for the greater good of others, and I know that. I _trust_ that about you with all my heart."

Charles is weeping now, breaking down and curling forward, pressing their joined hands to his forehead while he cries in Erik's lap. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you; I cannot thank you enough for that, Erik."

Erik kisses the top of Charles' head. "So tell me. Tell me your sins, Charles. What did you do?"

Sniffling, Charles calms enough with steady breaths until he's able to finally confess. Erik moves, grabbing something, and soon there is a soft tissue pressed to Charles' face, dabbing his tears, and then a fresh one under his nose. He takes it, blows, and is red-nosed and pink-eyed, but fully ready to speak.

-0-

_He snapped._

_Like a rubber band stretched far too wide, weakest point tearing apart until the sides whip backward, recoiling in the most painful way, Charles snapped._

_It was the eve of his mother's wake that Charles snuck down the hallway and peered into his mother's old bedroom. Marko was found sitting at the head of the bed, on his_ father's _side. Marko was laughing and grinning, downing shots of bourbon like water and licking his finger to thumb through cash and checks and bank statements on all the money collected and saved and the interest built on it throughout the years. He was_ laughing, _cackling wildly with drunken glee as he racked up the total on a calculator._

_Disgusted in the highest degree possible at Marko's lack of remorse, Charles went into the kitchen._

_He looked for the best cleaver; lengthy, serrated at the top and hair-splitting sharp along the bottom half of one side, and thick and shiny and wood-handled, it was meant for carving roasts or entire slabs of raw meat to make smaller to fit on the grill. It could hack a watermelon into perfect slices with a few short swings. It was lighter than most knives, surprisingly, because of its metal – titanium or silver or something else nice and expensive – and it was a wedding gift from Charles' grandmother to aid in "the vast amount of cooking your new husband will want from you! You'll need to fatten him up like a good housewife, after all."_

_Charles held the tool of his revenge in his hands and touched the cool, flat side of the blade to his lips, not quite kissing it, but feeling its smoothness with the sensitive skin as he dragged his mouth from just above the handle to just short of the pointed, squared-off tip. It was fogged when he pulled it back, and as he watched his breath shrink on the metal until only rainbow-lined smears were left on its flawless surface, Charles knew that his reasoning was solidified._

_He could do this. It would be surprisingly satisfying. He could amend the pact he broke and take a step up to being the man of the house once more, and to complete his pact by avenging the death of the woman he was meant to protect in the first place._

_And so Charles marched into his mother's bedroom, cleaver in hand by his side, his grip tight enough to whiten his knuckles, and he pushed open the ajar door until it smacked into the wall and bounced off of the doorstopper along the baseboard._

_"Eh? What the fuck are you doing in here, you son of a bitch? Didn't I tell you to get to bed? Get out! Get –" and Marko stopped cold, freezing like a mannequin when Charles raised his arm and flashed a grin._

_"What's the matter,_ sir _?" Charles said, grin wolfish and consuming, his teeth glinting and his eyes wide and dark, his pupils dilated to the point where his baby blues were hardly visible, reduced to thin rings around the edges. And there was sarcasm as syrupy and acrid as rattlesnake venom leaking from the word 'sir.' Because from the get-go, he wanted to be nothing more than known as 'sir,' hadn't he? And Charles kept right on grinning as he added, "Cat got your tongue? If you want, I could make that a reality. You always yelled too much, and no tongue would make you yell a lot less, I bet. And no vocal chords, too. I wonder what vocal chords even look like?"_

_"H-hey, n-now, son, you don't want to be hasty… This is just a prank, right? Well, you got me! It's real f-funny, honest. Uh, er… so… why don't you put down that knife and let's both go to sleep, huh? Big day tomorrow. We have to say goodbye to your mom, you know," Marko tried to say as he slowly got up form the bed, stumbling drunkenly as he went, and hobbled near the phone._

_"Don't touch that!" Charles barked, lunging forward until he was barely a meter from the middle-aged man. He growled – imagine that, a fourteen-year-old boy_ growling _– and pointed the cleaver directly at Marko's chin, the blade inches from touching the man's stubble-covered skin. "You aren't going to call the police. I should have years ago, the first time you ever struck my mom, but she had always seemed happy around you otherwise, and I didn't want to take that away from her. And I was too young to know what to do. But now I know, Marko. I know what I need to do. It's so clear, and it's a wonder I hadn't seen it before!"_

_"Ch-Charlie, come on, please, don't play games; you don't really want to –" the older man panicked._

_"Shut up! Only my mother can call me 'Charlie!' And as for what I want…" and here, Charles' smile returns, falsely soft as he steps closer, blade retracting close to his body as Marko back up toward the wall. He bumps into a bedside table, and the lamp from it topples off, crashing to the floor, bulb breaking and sparks flying, catching the curtains on fire. It doesn't even register in Charles' mind, his eyes seeing red, and Marko whimpers and lets out pathetic howls as he rubs the forming bruise on his hip from the table, the wood clattering with full thuds to the carpet, and tries to run away, around the young teen._

_Charles snorts, rolling his eyes, and easily beats Marko to the bedroom door. He closes it, locks it, and moves to the window next, locking it as well._

_The papers on the bed flutter to the floor or spread out further on the duvet cover as Marko leaps over the mattress to the other side of the room, desperate to keep distance between the armed boy and himself._

_"There's no way out, Stepdaddy. If you jump out the window, you'll really hurt yourself. And I won't let you get near enough to the door to get out. So it would be best if you just submit to your fate and let me put an end to you as you made me mother put an end to herself," Charles instructed with hysteric tones, his guts boiling and churning with so many mixed emotions that he felt he might vomit again. His body was thin from not eating much, but he was still strong. The adrenaline was enough to keep him going._

_Marko made more pathetic noises and scrambled about. Then, slowly, his face fell and he collapsed to his knees, face in his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm genuinely sorry. I'm so, so sorry! I was a greedy bastard, out for myself; I cheated on your mother often and I took her money and know it's my fault that she's dead, and I'm sorry that in wasn't sorry about any of it at first. But please, Charles, you have to spare my life," Marko says, forcing a smile as brittle as poorly blown glass. "I could give you all the money. I can leave your life and never come back. Please, I'll even turn myself in to the police somehow. I just… I want to live! Please, don't hurt me!"_

_"Your pleas and those actions can never atone for your sins," Charles uttered lowly as he leaned forward, cleaver caressing Marko's jaw without so much as scratching him yet, "And I would never get my revenge on you. You're the reason why my mother is dead, and you're the reason why our happiness was taken away, and I even wonder if you're the reason why my father is dead, too; you seem to love money. I have this theory that you were at that bank robbery, the one he died in."_

_"Wh… what? How could I possibly have –" Marko began, but Charles quickly moved the blade to lift the tender spot of Marko's jaw just behind and underneath his chin._

_"It doesn't matter what's possible, only what's probable, and honestly, I hate you so intensely that I don't give a shit if you're innocent or guilty of it, because you're guilty of too many other things regardless," Charles hissed, face too close to the man. He smelled of alcohol and cheap aftershave. Charles spat in his face. He smiled with sweetness so false it's worse than any cancer-causing Splenda-like concoction made by the food corporations of the world. It was a feigned grin so acidic that it might even corroded away some of the enamel on Charles' teeth as he maintained it._

_Marko didn't have time to respond verbally, let along blink. In that instant, Charles tackled the older man to the floor. He felt the struggle, the blows on his body from fists, and he felt hips wriggling to try and throw the lighter boy off or change positions enough for an escape, but Charles simply laughed and dealt with it the way someone might deal with a wild horse: he persevered despite his own wounds and waited patiently until the horse's will was broken._

_The voracious, selfish stepfather slowly quieted down as Charles started to glide the blade over rough skin. Marko froze to prevent the movement of the cleaver to collide with his own movements. He hated pain, didn't want pain, couldn't stand pain –_

_"Ironic," Charles said, as if reading Marko's mind, "That you seem to dread pain and yet inflict it so readily on others. I wonder why that is? Aside from being an evident sadistic nature, of course." And his tone was wistfully deadly, and acutely cruel. "Hmm. I wonder what I should do first. There is so much I want to take away from you,_ sir. _How about your tongue? It was aforementioned, and it seems like a decent place to start."_

_Marko's eyes widened and be started to scream, but with his mouth open that wide, it was easy for Charles to slide his hand in and pinch down on Marko's parched muscle and reach in with the tip of the cleaver to cut away at it as far back as he could go. His cheeks were cut horizontally in the process, making Marko's faded smirk wider and his jaw open easier. Marko writhed, legs kicking, and make a shriek Charles didn't know men could reach in pitch._

_Charles was tossed off then, Marko curling on his side and holding a hand to the dark, nearly black blood spilling forth from his lips in a waterfall like one from an overfull gutter during a storm. Outside, crickets chirped apathetically and Charles whistled along with them as he stepped around the cringing body and slammed a socked foot down against the side of his stepfather's head, heel grinding into the man's ear._

_"Oh, shut up, you big baby. It isn't that bad," Charles snorted. He kneeled down, feeling as though he was watching someone else work with a knife rather than himself, because he hadn't been himself since Marko came into his life. "Trust me, it's going to get even more painful than this, to force you to feel all the pain my mother and I endured at your hand and by your voice! – You don't even deserve this," Charles remarked, tossing down the tongue and making it slap Marko in the nose. "Because my mother and I had no say against you, did we? So why should you be able to talk while I take my revenge?"_

_And after that, Charles didn't say much more. He got lost in thought, thinking only how he was going to remove every last shred of egotistic dignity and scrap of vain power this man held within his simple frame._

_He made each move meaningful; he hacked off, chunk by chunk like a cucumber, each inch of Marko's penis for each woman he cheated on Charles' mother with. He pulled off, by hand with a little sawing, Marko's ring finger because of the emptiness of the vows. He watches as blood spurted out in bursts with each frantic heartbeat, and he soaked in the terror in Marko's eyes as the man watched Charles strip the finger of flesh until it was bone and tendon only, and then made Marko bite down onto it while Charles began carving out a space on Marko's abdomen so he could reach the guts Marko never showed, since the man always hid behind a cowardly bravado as he beat Charles and his mother senseless._

_Tearing out the intestines carefully, Charles watched as Marko started to lose consciousness, bone slipping from his teeth, dents in the calcium, and his eyelids began fluttering and eyeballs rolling to the back of his skull. Charles slapped him repeatedly._

_"Stay awake, you bastard! I have yet to tear your heart out without disconnecting it like I did your digestive tract, and you wouldn't want to miss seeing what a beating heart looks like, would you?"_

_Because with the right amount of continuous adrenaline (which Marko's fear gladly gave) and with careful enough movements, just about anyone's organs can be shifted around or lifted upward without removal while the person is still kept alive and conscious. And even unconscious (such as on operating tables in hospitals), just about anyone can be kept alive while they are open and being touched inside of._

_And there was blood everywhere; Charles has never felt so filthy before. He reveled in it; it felt like being covered in mud when your mother told you not to go play out after a heavy rain. It stained his clothes a rich crimson and smelled wonderful, like rusty iron and a little like an animal, and it felt warm where it repeatedly splattered onto Charles' skin or another place on his clothes to stain more spots or rewet less fresh ones._

_Kurt Marko didn't live long enough, despite the slapping and pinching of Charles' soiled, sticky hands and jabbing and stabbing of Charles' soiled, sticky knife, to see his heart be held up in the air. And what a shame, too, because Charles had been hoping that he could feel a heartbeat, a_ real _heartbeat, not hear it through clothing or subtly feel it over flesh and bone._

_Still, the heart was beautiful, more complex than the fetal pig heart he dissected this year in school. It was big and meaty and oozing blood. The valves were all in working order, and it was fun to squeeze the organ like a stress ball before making it jiggle like red, mushy Jell-O in his palm._

_But what's better than the feel of the warm heart was knowing that it belonged to the dead, staring-eyed man on the floor beside him, because this same man crushed and tore out Charles' and Sharon's hearts long ago, stomping on them; well, metaphorically and not as literal as this, but still. It felt good to know that Charles could return the heartless (ha, it's a pun!) favor._

_Licking his lips, Charles tasted a fragment of blood and it was kind of disgusting, but at the same time, it was kind of tolerable. But he had no desire to resort to cannibalism, no matter how tempted the young teen felt toward the prospect of gnawing on something valuable of Marko's, like the man's self-deemed smarts (his brain) or his self-valued pride (his built biceps)._

_Instead, Charles went to work chopping up the body to pieces – arms and legs and hands and feet and torn-out organs and torso and head – to stuff into garbage bags and hide in the cellar under the floor. And he cleaned up all the blood while it was still cooling on the carpet, using the carpet-cleaner his mother bought to accompany their vacuum._

_Charles burned his bloodied clothes in the fireplace and destroyed a lot of the reminders of Kurt Marko in his home. And he took his mother's money and put it in the bank, under a new account. And he used it for college after he finished high school, being in foster care after Kurt Marko's mysterious disappearance until he was sixteen and able to be emancipated._

_…And the rest, they say, is history._

-0-

Erik slowly took all this in and sucked in air as he digested the information, shuddering at how casual Charles had been about the gore, and how he seemed to have _played_ in it at the time, like a younger child might play at Christmas. It takes a moment, but the former metal-controller finds his voice. "But… if you got away with murder, Charles, how ever did you stuck here?"

Charles sighs. "I had _thought_ I'd gotten away with murder, but there is always something, even with cold cases like Marko's. All it took was the right leverage to get me to burst, my panic and paranoia enough to get me to confess."

"All right, yes, that makes sense, but now I must know: what elicited that sort of response from you?" Erik dares to ask.

The former telepath sighs for a second time. "I'm just about twenty-six now, correct?"

"Yes? And?" Erik pries.

Charles licks his lips nervously and brushes back his hair. "I didn't quite make it to becoming a professor. It was during my sophomore year of college that he came to me."

"…Who came to you? A detective from Marko's case?" Erik frowns, asking for clarification; there's no need for Charles to be vague now, not after all that he relayed to his lover.

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Charles says, huffing half a chuckle. His eyes refuse to reconnect with Erik's, the shame(?) there, but perhaps it isn't shame at all, and that's what worries the slightly older patient. "No, it was more of a spirit than a person who came to me. Do you believe in incarnation, Erik? A living personification of someone?"

Erik blows air out his mouth and shrugs, arms dropping to clap onto his lap in a surrendering manner. "I have no idea. It seems plausible, I suppose; just as much as reincarnation and other spiritual things."

He nearly smiles, his blue eyes strictly serious and peering into Erik's unwaveringly. He seems grateful for those words, as hesitant as they may be. He goes on, "Because I wasn't born as the mutant Charles Xavier, you know. I was born as myself, with my own intuition and dull, human senses. But when I was in college… the other Charles died. He died in his world, and then, seeking a way to carry on without _moving_ on, he came to me. Me, another version of himself, younger and more capable than he was in his current state before death. And he… _merged_ with me. Not quite a voice in my head, but part of my soul and very being.

"Professor X transferred every last one of his memories to me, and I believed them. I saw them, not from dreams but from my own mind, and I knew that they must be real, because everything was in them, even another version of my stepfather, and oh, did I envy and respect my other self, because he was wise and kind and gentle and _not_ a murderer, and he is everything else good about me that should have been and almost was once again, after so many years since I snapped."

As Charles concludes, Erik is already drawing him in to a hug. "All right, this makes much more sense. And, I assume, some of his consciousness must be touch-and-go enough for you to have a bouts of his abilities, correct? That's why you have powers sometimes when we don't?"

"Precisely," Charles says with a genuine smile, as tiny as it is. "I knew you would understand. But what is interesting is that, even as part of me and not a being any longer, he can still project enough into others' minds to help them see and recall the lives of their other selves, the ones he knew."

"So the dreams I've been having, the memories I've been receiving – They're all that Charles' doing?" the taller man frowns as he smoothing down Charles' silky brown locks and continuing to cradle the smaller man in his arms. He laughs bittersweetly. "That's disappointing, actually; I had hoped I was capable of it on my own accord. But I can't say I'm complaining; I like knowing things about the kind of man I am in another world's reality. It's better than reading a book to escape this reality."

"Amen to that," Charles agrees. His smile fades as soon as he concludes, "But it was confusing at first, and I wasn't sure what to do with the information, so I blabbed about mutants and confused the realities and people heard me, caught on, thought me delusional – _out of my mind_ – and pitched in to help send me here, since they were all worried college professors and other chums of mine."

"And… that's how they interviewed you and got you to confess to your murder and throw you in the D-Wing here for, what, four or five years?"

"Yes," Charles answers. He closes his eyes and sinks into Erik's warm, sturdy body. "And then that's all. That's who I am, who I was, what happened to both of me. I killed one, I met myself, and I came here. And that's all there is to it." He pauses, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, and lowers his gaze, burying his face into Erik's chest. "And now I must ask, as much as I don't wish to know: how have your feelings toward me changed?"

"Hmm. Yes, is see that now," Erik remarks idly. He lifts Charles' face enough to look into his eyes. "Although I want you to know that I see you no differently. Like I told you, nothing you could have done or have to say can change my mind or my heart. I love you, Charles. I accept you, even the ugly bits, since you accept me just as wholly. And now, I know that we have even more reason and urgency to escape this place this weekend, and all because I know that, after seeing how you reacted while retelling this tale to me, you are more than ready to be out in the free world again."

"…God, how did I ever come to deserve you?" the former telepath hiccups, although he doesn't cry again. Instead, he presses a needy kiss to his lover's lips, one that is returned passionately.

And Charles doesn't know if he's picking up the thought from Erik or if it's merely wishful thinking on his part or what Erik might be pondering at the moment, but in this instant, all Charles can hear in his mind is a single phrase in response to his spoken inquiry:

_No, the real question is: how did the other me, the real Magneto, ever come to deserve_ you _?_


	13. Snitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a deep breath, Angel enters the warden's office.

After Charles told God's honest truth about himself to Erik, they held one another for a while until Erik cheerfully suggested that they play a real round of chess this time, something competitive like the old days, from the life the real Charles Xavier lets them remember so fondly.

Charles had agreed, and after supper Erik had gone to bed, emotionally exhausted (perhaps nearly as much as Charles would be himself). He slept a good four hours until he was wide-awake, eyes snapping open from a nightmare.

A nightmare in which he was Charles and Shaw was Marko, but instead of killing Shaw the same way Marko had been killed, Shaw turned the tables and started to slowly torture Erik the same way, and it was brutal and agonizing and the last thing Erik wanted to see.

So Erik breaks out of his ward after the dream, using a bobby pin he stole from a nurse and slips out into the hall, a slipper left to hold his door open a crack. He paces down the corridor, wandering aimlessly, until he finds himself at a crossroad at the end; from here, he can enter the Roaming Room and venture down the D-Wing, or he can go out to the center and venture down the B-Wing. They don't lock all the doors at night anymore, mainly to permit Emma to walk around if she stays late and so wishes. Also, it's fir the janitors to get around easier.

Although it's almost a foolish thing, because don't they realize that makes it pretty easy for patients to escape at least their rooms and wreak havoc within the confines of the facility?

It hardly matters, though, because Erik likes the taste of freedom. It enables him to stretch his legs, clear his head, and inhale air less stale than the air of his room.

Erik chooses to head for Charles' room, because it would be messy and violent if he went to Shaw's at a time like this, as satisfying as it would be to change the outcome of that dream by making some of Shaw's pain a reality. Still, as much as Erik detests him, he has no real reason to harm the man (yet, Erik pessimistically reminds himself), so he sees visiting Charles as the better option.

However, Erik passes by Sean's room along the way, and stops dead when he hears muffled whimpers. He frowns, turns toward the teenager's door, and pushes open the slot beneath the window to listen better as he peers through the grated glass to try and see into the darkness.

It turns out it isn't very difficult to see in there because Sean has a nightlight set up in the corner; light blue-green, soft and calming, like the reflections of water. Sean is asleep, but he's kicking in his sheets and making tragic noises, and suddenly, he cries out in a mumbling, but strong voice, "No, stop it! Stop, please! Don't kill them, don't _hurt_ them! _Please_!"

Erik knows what Sean must be dreaming of: the slaughtering of his parents. It's tragic and disheartening, so Erik doesn't hesitate to stick his bobby pin into the lock and work it around, poking and lifting and shifting, until it clicks open.

It's by some fragment of fatherly instinct that causes Erik to rush in and comfort the boy, using his other slipper to hold the door ajar. He bends over the side of the small cot and grips Sean's shoulders, jarring him awake. "Banshee, Ban- _Sean_! Wake up!"

The redhead slowly comes to and stills, his body going limp and his eyes looking squinty and tired in the soft glow of the oceanic nightlight. Sean blinks, rubs his eyes as Erik removes his hands from the boy's shoulders, and then opens his mouth. Erik has yet to hear him speak outside of his sleep-mutterings, so he wonders if boy is going to willingly speak again now.

But Erik doesn't know of Sean's progress, so he's surprised when Sean says in a stable tone, "Erik? Hi. What are you doing in my room?"

Erik blinks, makes the faintest of frowns, and straightens himself. "I… was on my way to see Charles. Like you, I had a nightmare. You can speak now?"

Sean laughs a little. He sits up and ruffles his own hair, the shaggy ginger locks already mussed into a bed-head style. "Yeah. You have Alex to thank for that, I guess. In a way, he's the one who got me talking. And since I've been talking, my voice coming back more and more, we've been thinking. We think we need to escape soon, man. Like, really soon. I could be released, but I don't want to leave you guys. I'll just go to some foster parent until I turn eighteen, and I don't want that. I want you and Charles to take care of me until I can make a life for myself."

The former metal-wielder's heart rarely softens for anyone; thus far, only his mother and Charles have been able to do it. But looking at this boy, he feels it again, a sort of companionship, because he knows that he's needed as a parental figure, but also because he knows that he's wanted as one as well. And no one has ever liked him very much, especially not enough to welcome him as kin.

He smiles reassuringly, and his tone is serious and sounds like a promise as he tells the former mute, "Have no fear, Sean. We're going to leave this place in a few days, over the weekend, most likely on Saturday night. And you and Alex are coming with us no matter what. And we _will_ take care of you, both of you."

Sean nods, smiling, and is suddenly in Erik's arms in a thank-you-hug, and Erik is startled but doesn't reject the boy; he returns the embrace curtly, pats him on the head, and leaves his room.

"Sleep more soundly this time, all right?" he says as he opens the door.

"I will. Thanks for coming in for me, Erik," Sean whispers, and Erik just smiles again. He decides not to go see Charles; he feels that he was meant to visit Sean tonight instead, and it did offer a reprieve from his own nightmare, and that's enough.

-0-

Two mornings later, on Friday, there's a bit of a commotion going on in the main hall near the receptionist's desk. It seems that someone leaked a planned escape attempt to Emma, and the female warden is currently holding a whodunit assembly for all of the non-A-Wing patients, bodies upon bodies crowding the way and pushing past one another to strain to hear her over the school-like PA system.

"All right, whomever intended to escape better come forth now, or I will be forced to take drastic measures, forcing _all_ of you to have D-Wing regulations despite what wing you're in! All I heard was a little birdie telling me to up the security, but I want real answers! I want _suspects_! Now come forth, or everyone will be punished!" Emma hollers. She needs to maintain order. She may be more understanding and less goal-oriented than Shaw, but an escape attempt is an escape attempt, and she refuses to have it happen here.

Naturally, multiple patients know about the four former D-Wing patients' plans to flee. They know, and they admire the idea (if they are sound enough to comprehend it, not too lost to congratulate its brilliance), and there is a lot of respect to be had if the four boys succeed.

So when it comes down to this, down to having someone rat them out or for the four themselves to step forward, no one wants to do it. No one wants to _see_ it happen. They all shove, stand, and look every which way, do _anything_ than tattle.

Angel comes pushing through the crowd to the front, near the warden's office. She wasn't the birdie; Janos had been. He told her himself, and he said he did it out of jealousy, really, because he knows that Azazel is going to be part of it; "Honestly," he told her, "He's willing to risk his job and worse on account of some girl too young for him asking for him to help her friends join her? What an idiot!" and she had reminded him that he loves the other guard anyhow, but he hadn't responded to that.

So now, now she knows what's the right thing to do; after all, it's presenting itself to her, isn't it? The opportunity to tell the warden about the getaway must be a sign that she should confess what Darwin asked of her, right? She only wants to do right by others in the long run… And right by herself. What if she gets in trouble for knowing and not saying anything? Because more than anything else, Angel fears causing more trouble for herself than what she's already gotten in life. She needs this job, needs the trust of others; it's all she has left anymore.

With a deep breath, Angel enters the warden's office.

"Angel. Hello, honey. Do you have something to tell me regarding the situation?" Emma asks casually.

Angel swallows uneasily. She bows her head, nodding, one of her hands across her front, beneath her breasts, to rub her thumb along her opposite bicep. "Yeah… I do. It's the people who want to escape. I know who they are."

"Then by all means, sit down and tell me, won't you?" Emma says, serene smile on her face, and it's a face to be trusted, Angel thinks.

She seats herself, hands clasped in her lap, and lifts her head confidently as she says in au unyielding tone, "Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Sean Cassidy, and Alex Summers."

"Thank you, sugar," Emma whispers. "You may go now. And know that you'll be getting a raise for this."

"…Th-thank you, Warden Frost," Angel says with a surprised gasp and a smile. She's still smiling as she leaves, a burden feeling as though it's been lifted from her chest. She did the right thing! She _actually_ did the right thing! It feels good to know.

But the second she walks out of the warden's office, there's a riot on her hands, and she feels all of her happiness turn ice cold and sink to the bottom of her stomach as her smile drops off and breaks on the tile floor.

The guards are swarming, but the patients outnumber them in the dozens, and people are getting beaten and bitten and there are screams and profanities being heard everywhere.

…And how did this even start in that short amount of time?

-0-

_Just a few minutes earlier…_

"That betraying bitch!" Alex calls out furiously as soon as he sees Angel walk up to the warden's office. He spins on his heel and grabs Charles, shaking him. "She's going to rat us out! What're we gonna do? I knew she couldn't be trusted, a shank like her!"

"Alex; Alex, please, calm down!" Sean begs, tugging on Alex's sleeve.

The blond's face instantly changes. Since Sean got his voice back, that seems to be the main thing that grabs Alex's attention any longer.

Hank is suddenly there, worming his way through the crowd. "At this rate, there's going to be a prison riot without the prison! What would you call that, anyway? A patient riot?"

"A riot?" Erik repeats, grunting as he shoves past someone. "That's it!" He nudges Charles and whispers into the shorter man's ear, "We need to create a riot as a distraction, and then we can slip away and escape right now, since we've been discovered."

Charles nods, albeit reluctantly. He sighs. "I suppose we have no choice." He looks to his three boys. "Are you up for this? A riot and our flight, right here, right now?"

"Hell yes!" Alex grins, clenching a fist. "We can do it."

"Yeah, I can handle that," Sean agrees, puffing out his chest slightly. "I'm not the kid I was, you know."

Charles smiles fondly. He touches Sean's jaw, nicking it playfully. "I know, Banshee. You've grown the most, in a way. I'm very proud of you." He turns his attention to Hank. "Will you be joining us, Beast?"

Hank nibbles on his bottom lip. He debates with himself back and forth, back and forth. His sort of conscience won't really allow him to break the rules, nor the law. He glances at Alex, seeing how sure he is, and it makes his face heat up. Should he? For Alex's sake, and for the other's sake? Except… what about Hank's own sake? Does he want this? What sort of life will he have as a psych ward runaway?

Hank starts to cry, tears thick and hot, and he looks away. "I can't," he whispers. He wants to, he truthfully does want to leave with them, but he knows that he shouldn't and couldn't and therefore won't. He sighs raggedly. "But I'll help with the riot. I still have a little bit of a rough side inside my somewhere, after all. Hyde can never fully leave Jekyll, now, can he?" and his follow-up smile is a little disarming with how lovely it is, and it strikes Alex directly in the chest.

"None of us hold any of that against you, Hank," Charles utters, and Hank nods. And then he's vanishing into the center of the crowd. He lifts someone and tosses them into someone else, and they get pissed off and attack someone else who bumped into them, and everyone confuses someone else with hurting them. In split seconds, a mosh pit of sorts is forming, fists and legs and bodies flying and tumbling all over the place.

Erik, Sean, Alex, and Charles slip out of the crowd and race down an empty hallway. They pass Azazel along the way, and he waves them over. "This way!" he tells them, and unlocks doors for them as they noisily clatter down the halls. They gather miscellaneous belongings that they've had packed for over a week and skid as they race out of their rooms and down the halls again. It sucks about the split wing thing, Erik and Alex still in C and Charles and Sean still in B, because that makes for more places to go, and more things to gather. But Erik tells them to skip his room – "There's nothing of value in that ward," – and they're nearly home free.

-0-

Moira is there, holding back guards by directly them to go help with the riot. She anxiously glances over her shoulder, praying that the four young men make it out all right.

Darwin bumps into Logan, and the man snarls and throws the African American back into the center of the rioting crowd of patients. "Watch it, bub! This is your girlfriend's entire fault! She's coming out right now and I can't wait to get my hands on her and choke the life outta her for ratting out my boys!"

"Don't you dare blame Angel for all of this!" Darwin tosses back, his voice high. "That sort of accusation is way out of line! She didn't do anything wrong!"

"The hell she did!" Logan roars, knocking some poor woman to the ground. She scrambles up and claws at him, but all he does is spin her around and she starts to attack Darwin instead, nails jagged form being bitten to Hell. They leave white and pink trails on Darwin's skin, and he hisses and throws her off, not one for resorting to violence, but finding it all right in this instant.

Angel gets sucked into the massive group of riled folk, and Darwin tries to reach her, his arms stretching over people's heads and beside their shoulders. "Angel!"

"Armando!" she calls out in return, tears reaching her eyes. "What's happening? Why is it turning out this way?"

He can't answer her. He doesn't know why, although he can tell her _what_ : "They're mad at you for tattling!" he says loudly, over the screech of other voices, "And they're escaping now! And Logan –"

But she doesn't have time to hear the warning. Darwin is pushed back and onto the ground, getting stepped on by a few shoed and unshoed feet, bruises turning purple within moments on his chocolate skin. He hears Angel scream and grunt, and he tries to push himself up to find her, save her –

"I've got you, you backstabbing little bitch!" Logan growls in her face as he pins her body beneath his much larger, stronger one. Her hands try to grasp and pull at his meaty hands on her throat, and she tries to kick her slim legs under his weight, but it's no use. He's much more powerful than she could ever pretend to be. Her breathing is being blocked and her head is feeling stuffy and compressed as the life is choked out of her. "How fucking _dare_ you tell the White Witch in there about Charles' plan, and all the people he's trying to save! What right do you have, huh? What makes you so above any of them?"

" _Logan_!" Darwin roars, leaping onto Logan's back. But even as he has the larger, wilder man in a chokehold, it doesn't account for anything. Logan is too busy strangling Angel to be bothered by his own discomfort.

It isn't until her eyes are closed and her body is limp and her trachea is snapping under his thumbs that Logan finally stops. The gruff man rolls backward onto the slimmer one, wrestling with him, and there is a hint of regret in Logan's eyes when he sees how Darwin is crying.

"You're killed her! You killed her, you animal! I will never forget this, Logan. I will hate you until the day you die!" Darwin is saying, and Logan moves off of him and shoves his hands into his pockets. He starts to leave, and he heard Darwin behind him, cradling Angel's body, mumbling things through his tears to his slack form.

And Logan feels sick enough to nudge into the bathroom and hurl into a sink.

Outside the restroom, whistles are being blown and Emma is coming over the PA system. The riot is being taken under control.

With sleeping gas.

Logan tries to resist it as it slips under the bathroom door and blasts from the vents, white and powdery, smoky and chemical-smelling. He coughs, but within moment, he's dropping to the ground, utterly unconscious.

And somewhere, in another corridor away from the riot, Azazel is leading the four patients toward the D-Wing. "It's the only place we have left to escape through, comrades," he explains in his thick accent, his voice unstable as he jogs alongside them. "Hurry, hurry!"

"Alex," Sean breathes, "Something smells weird. And why is everything getting fuzzy?"

"Gas!" Charles exclaims, turning around and nearly tripping over his own feet as he sees it leaking through the doors that lead into the Roaming Room. "We really do need to hurry, or we'll be unconscious like surely all the others!"

"Fucking authority," Alex curses under his breath, helping Sean cover his mouth with his shirt as they rush along the hall, heading into the D-Wing.

But Janos is on the other side of the door.

"Going somewhere with these patients, Azazel?" the Latino remarks with a scowl. "Because I don't think so."


	14. Psychotic Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But now?" He laughs evilly. "Now, I'm already fired and in a place where they can't do much worse to me. So I'm free! I'm free!"

"Help me carry these patients to their proper rooms," Emma instructs the nurses and guards, or what she can find of them on hand. Dammit, why don't they have more hands on duty over weekends, or at least Fridays? This is ridiculous… "God, this is such a mess. How did this start? And… is this girl dead? Her neck…"

A nurse nods, sniffling. "She is. And she was my friend; she worked in the cafeteria's kitchen."

"What a mess," Emma repeats grimly. She sighs and helps sort out the unconscious patients, not knowing without any proper roll-call who is missing and who isn't. and the building is too large to hear what's going on in the should-be empty D-Wing…

-0-

"I was not goingk with them anywhere in particular, comrade," Azazel replies calmly. "I was only showingk them to their rooms."

"That a lie!" Janos barks, taking a threatening step forward. Sean moves behind Alex; not clinging like a child, but at least seeking comfort out of fear. Janos – _Dangerous, currently unstable **Riptide** , _Charles reminds himself – clenches his hands into fists, scowl deepening. "We both know that all four of 'em transferred out of D-Wing a long while ago. I was _there,_ Azazel. You can't trick me."

"I was not tryingk to," Azazel returns levelly. He inhales and stands up to full height, stepping in front of the group. "I am tryingk to keep a promise I made. That is all."

"Yeah, a promise you made to some young, blonde, _psycho_ whore who's always been playin' you, has always had you wrapped around her pretty little finger. Why can't you wake up, Azazel? Why the fuck can't you see that she's never going to love you like you love her?" And his voice turns softer in a less angry tone as he adds, "Like _I_ love you?"

Azazel freezes, and Charles feels a stab of pity. Poor Janos. He only wants for Azazel to keep his job and stay with him, doesn't he? And yet Raven and the others are ruining that for the Latino.

"I am terribly sorry, Janos, I did not know –" Azazel begins quietly, and Charles can tell that the conflicted former teleporter doesn't know how to let down his co-worker, his _friend,_ gently enough. Because, clearly, Azazel isn't interested in men, but poor Janos couldn't help his feelings, and now here they are, all caught in a tangled web in the middle of a riot, of creeping sleeping gas, of an escape attempt.

"It doesn't matter! I'm not lettin' you do this, Azazel; I'm not letting you help them get away. They will go through this like any normal person, and you'll do your duty like any normal person," Janos commands. He whips out his stun-gun and points it at the five in front of him. "So turn around, and lets' go back. Let's help the warden, and let's get them into their real rooms."

Azazel shakes his head. "No, Janos. I gave my word, and it is honorable to keep one's word. So I will be finishingk this. And you will stand down before I must use force on you, comrade."

Janos grits his teeth. "No way in Hell!" he yells, and charges.

Charles cringes at the sound of their bodies colliding and worse yet, the sputtering electric clicks of the stun gun going off. The thud to the floor is the very worst, and Charles has to look away and hide his face in Erik's clothes when he hears that weighted sound.

"I am sorry, comrade," Azazel whispers, tossing down the stun gun he tore from Janos' hands to join the unconscious man on the floor. He looks to the other four with something painful in his eyes. "Let us move on. We will have to be usingk the emergency exit at end of corridor."

Charles takes Erik's hand and squeezes. They dash onward and don't look back.

-0-

"Where's Azazel and Janos? I could use their brawn!" Emma grunts as she opens the door to the C-Wing and helps the other nurses get a few bodies inside their proper rooms. "This is tiring. I wish there had been another way to end the riot with people like this."

"Agreed," says another nurse, her strawberry blonde hair sweaty from exertion in her bangs and in front of her ears where stray strands have fallen from her ponytail. "But aside from sedation, how do you calm a crowd of mentally ill folk?"

"Precisely my point," Emma sighs. She wipes her own brow. "Anyway, who's next?"

They check the pajamas and read off a number, and Emma personally sees to it that each and every person form the riot is put where they belong. It's such a time-consuming distraction that she doesn't once consider the possibility that the people she didn't mean to escape could be doing so at this very second.

-0-

All the doors in the D-Wing are unlocked, and all the rooms are empty.

Save for one.

They pass by Sebastian Shaw's ward, and as if subconsciously, Erik halts before it and slowly turns to peer inside its ajar door, peering in at the windowless, dark room. He frowns, cocking his head, when he notices a boot within the ray of light from the hallway. D-Wing patients can't have boots. But…

Guards can have boots.

"Charles!" Erik calls out, and Charles returns to Erik's side.

"What is it? We're almost to the emergency exit! What could possibly make you of all people st–" but he cuts himself off mid-word as his line of sight matches Erik's. "Azaz–!"

From the blackness, Shaw emerges with a stolen stun gun and pocketknife from the guard he must have knocked out (or killed?) during the moment everyone was being herded from their rooms to assemble in the main entrance.

Shaw comes right up to Erik and Charles, weapons in hand, and he's smirking in that eerily calm way he does. "Hello, boys," he greets nonchalantly. "Beautiful day for a riot, isn't it? And an escape during such commotion, eh? Perfect day… for revenge as well."

Azazel is out of earshot. He's probably down the turn in the hall with the two younger boys in tow, most likely already leading them out the door and possibly even Outside to the Grounds, and up to the Fence? Charles can almost see them in his mind's eyes, racing across a field of half-yellowed grass, Azazel at the lead, bringing the boys to freedom.

_They deserve that freedom,_ Charles thinks vaguely as Shaw circles them like a vulture. _I don't even know if Erik and I deserve it. He's killed multiple people, and me… I might be insane. I should just face that as a fact. I might have made up Professor X entering my very soul and merging with me out of necessity. I could have imagined it all. So perhaps it would be best if Shaw used those on me… Perhaps Erik would be better off without this nearly false love I've built for us._

_Don't you fucking dare call it 'false love,'_ Erik thinks, and Charles is startled to have heard it. He peers sideways at Erik, and Erik is in a battle stance, but looking directly at the shorter man. _It's real. It's as real as me hearing you in my head just now. It's as real as Shaw in front of us. False pretenses or not, I came to genuinely love you, Charles. So don't you dare give up on me! You're not one to give up._

_You're absolutely correct,_ Charles replies as he swallows back tears and Erik looks away, at Shaw again, as if he hadn't thought a thing. _I need to be strong. I have legs, I have power of will; let's see if I can use them._

With a roar, Shaw launches himself at Charles. "This is for your mind-games, you blue-eyed bastard! This is for getting me institutionalized in my _own_ institution!"

The stun-gun fizzes with bluish electricity and sends a shock through Charles that knocks him off his feet. Erik is on Shaw then, tackling him from behind and shouting, "Don't you _ever_ lay so much as a _finger_ on what isn't yours to touch!"

Erik is beating Shaw with a fist, hitting at an exact angle, and Shaw is reaching backward with one hand, trying to stab with the pocketknife, while the other hand is truing to wrestle Erik off of his back.

The former metalbender kicks Shaw's legs from out underneath him, forcing him to the ground. They wrestle and flip over and pin one another over and over like a couple of skirmishing bobcats. Charles joins in, trying to assist Erik in felling their previous warden. But Erik gets cut on the forearm and the side of the neck and stabbed deeply in the thigh, crying out through clenched teeth, and Charles _screams_ with rage at his lover's wounds being made.

Charles takes over then, purposely shoving Erik to the side as he takes on Shaw himself. _I should have done more to make you dead the first time. I won't hold back now. You've hurt Erik, and for that, you deserve to die._

Janos must have come-to and came down the hall in search of them, because all at once, Erik is no longer on the ground, and Charles is distracted as he leans half off of Shaw and releases his wrists, calling out, "Erik, no –!" as Janos starts kicking Erik to the ground, drilling the toes of his shoes into Erik's ribs, breaking them with audible snaps that make Charles' stomach churn with nausea.

But Shaw is still paying perfect attention to his opponent, even if Charles is not.

Erik wrenches open his eyes and struggles to see through his pain where he's doubled over on his side on the floor. His eyes grow cartoonishly wide, mouth stretching open too quickly until his jaw cracks and his tendons ache. " _CHARLES!"_

And it's the same exact scream he made when Charles was blown to dust particles in Jean Grey's old home in the parallel universe to this one. Except this time, tears flow freely from Erik's much younger eyes, and Charles isn't combusting.

In place of that…

Shaw is grinning broadly and spilling Charles' blood from his abdomen above his belly button in roughly the same place as his diaphragm, and Charles' face is going as white as a sheet. He clutches the knife still embedded in his flesh and teeters sideways, falling in a heap on the cold, unforgiving tile floor of the hallway.

"Hahahaha!" Shaw cackles, stumbling over to rest a hand on the guard's shoulder. "Thank you, thank you! You did well, Janos, very well. Thank you. Without your help, I wouldn't have been able to get Charles. Well done, well done. Remind Emma to give you a raise! – I would, of course, if I were still warden. You deserve it. Well done…"

"Anytime, Mr. Shaw," Janos smirks, giving Erik one final kick before turning away. "And now I should get back to work. I'm sure Miss Frost needs me."

"Yes, yes," Sebastian agrees, still grinning, and Erik's tears have left this eyes.

Janos is gone, leaving the way Erik and the others had come, and soon it's just the three of them within feet of each other.

Heaving breaths with painfully poking, misplaced ribs, his chest feeling like a chipped barrel, Erik shakily stands. Shaw doesn't notice; he's too busy cooing over Charles' body on the floor.

"You look so pretty with the ruby all around you like that. Ruby is a good color for you, _214657."_

Sebastian stoops down and watches the sweat collect on Charles' forehead, watches the pain dancing in Charles' twitching pupils, and Erik feels like biting Shaw's head off when the man licks a finger and wipes a smudge of blood from Charles' cheek.

"Aww, did that hurt, Charles? So sorry about that, but it had to be done. You know that, don't you? I couldn't have you ruining things for me any longer. I should have poisoned or strangled you the day you came to my office for lunch, but I knew I would get found out and fired for it. But now?" He laughs evilly. "Now, I'm already fired and in a place where they can't do much worse to me. So I'm free! I'm _free_!"

Erik picks up the fallen stun-gun and cranks up its power as high as it will go. He hobbles to stand directly behind Shaw and holds up the stun-gun to the base of Shaw's neck. He presses the stubby metal prongs at the top directly on either side of Shaw's spinal column in his neck and holds down the trigger for a long, long time, even after Shaw drops to the floor.

He fries Sebastian Shaw's brain as much as an overcooked egg, until the skin is smoking and sizzling and Shaw's eyes have began to melt out of his sockets.

Erik then drops the gun, drops to his knees, and drops his gaze.

To Charles.

He crawls on hands and knees to Charles' side, the tears flowing once again.

He can hear voices ringing throughout the abandoned hallway. Azazel's, Sean's, Alex's. They came back for the two men when they realized they weren't following any longer.

Sean screams bloody murder; he isn't wrong in seeing it that way.

Alex is immediately throwing infuriated questions into the air, and Azazel is already picking up a walkie-talkie, turning it on, and asking for help from Moira, or anyone he can find on their walkies who is willing to help.

"No…" Charles whispers, groaning as Erik removes the four-and-a-half inch blade by the handle and puts pressure on the wound, rolling Charles onto his back. "You… you need… to escape… Leave me… The nur- nurses will fix me. Just… Go. It isn't worth it. Don't… give up, remember?" And he forces a smile through his scorching pain, and it hurts to speak louder than a whisper, and it feels like something is leaking into a place fluid shouldn't be, like somewhere in his abdomen where blood shouldn't flow outside the veins and arteries…

"Charles, Charles, please, _no._ I can't – I can't watch you get permanently damaged, not again, and I can't… I can't watch you _die_ again, either!" Erik pleads, cradling Charles' head.

Moira shrieks with a high-pitched, breathy, teary sound as she comes racing in her clacking heels down the hallway, two other nurses with a stretcher behind her. This is a hospital of sorts; this can be fixed, it can be worked with –

"Charles! I'm so sorry, Charles, I'm so sorry; I should have –" Moira is saying, and it's so similar to the Cuban beach Erik _knows_ he remembers that it makes him feel like crying all over again.

Sean and Alex are there, and Charles is losing a lot of blood and turning very clammy and pale, and Erik feels helpless as he keeps pressure on Charles' wound, his hands painted with Charles' blood.

"We're never leaving. We're never getting out of here. Our freedom is dying with the Professor," Sean murmurs faintly, his voice hoarse from crying, his hands gripping Alex's arm as they walk alongside the stretcher.

"It sucks, it really does," Alex replies numbly, his voice tragically flat. "Because I think you're right."

"I failed," is all Azazel can say.

Erik feels that way, too. But his words were stolen from him.

"There's just… no time left, now," Sean whispers brokenly, and he has to look away when Charles passes through a pair of swinging double doors.

_No time,_ the former metalbender agrees mentally. _There never is enough time._


	15. No Man Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik's thoughts are scattered, ideas and theories and blankness and memories and emotions flitting through, shifting and churning up, down, and around, like flakes in a snowglobe.

Erik is tearing ten ways from Friday, his mind distraught and his hope lost and his arms being tugged by two teenage boys on either side of him. He sighs roughly, his breath as stale as a lion's who hasn't eaten in days, and feeling just as dryly hot as one's. Erik's thoughts are scattered, ideas and theories and blankness and memories and emotions flitting through, shifting and churning up, down, and around, like flakes in a snowglobe.

"Erik," Sean poses quietly, his voice small and drained, "If Charles lives, what will happen? Will we go back to our cells? Will they send us to prison instead? And then, if he _dies_ …"

"Shh," Erik retorts crisply, his eyes darting to Sean's face on his right shoulder, "He's not going to die. He… he _can't_ die. He wouldn't leave us like that. But, assuming he heals up, I'm not sure what will happen. We broke the rules, trying to escape. I killed again. Things are not looking so good for us."

"But Erik, if he _did_ die… Then what would we do? Escape anyhow, without him? Try to… try to live by ourselves?" Sean questions in a whispery voice, his eyes filling with tears, but they refuse to spill over. He looks so young this way, like a child years behind sixteen or seventeen, whatever he is.

Erik looks up and away, toward the double doors Charles went though. He rubs Sean's back with his hand, Alex asleep on his other side, cheek squashed against his left shoulder. "Try not to think about for now. But I swear to you, Banshee, I will do _something_ if he dies. I wouldn't allow his efforts to count for naught. If he dies, it won't be in vain. And if he lives, his scar won't be in vain, either."

-0-

Until the very end, Shaw was acting curiously like this former self, Erik puzzles out as Sean snores lightly on him, Alex's hand lying on Erik's lap mere centimeters from Sean's clothes, as if he had wanted to reach out to the redhead but didn't quite make it before he fell asleep. Erik grinds his teeth in annoyance. He wishes that he had answers. Any sort of answers would do.

An answer to whether or not Charles will die. An answer to whether or not they all will be forced to remain here for the rest of their days. An answer to whether or not everything is a truth or a lie; just one of these answers would satisfy him.

 _I almost have a grasp on the answers about Shaw, however,_ Erik thinks to himself. _Assuming that what Charles and I believe in is the truth, then it's possible that, when my other self killed Shaw, the man was still looking for a way to live on and find a new way to take control over a race of people, and what he found was the – probably newborn at the time – body of this other self of his. And so he merged with it as Xavier had with my Charles, but lacking Xavier's telepathic ability, the other-Shaw used his energy-stealing mutation to become a parasite on this-Shaw's soul, and slowly consumed his train of thought until… Well, until Shaw became what he was to all of us, right until the very end._

The former metalbender strokes his chin with interest as he thinks this over. To him, it makes perfect sense, and he wonders if it very well isn't the exact truth after all.

He sighs again, and soon, a blonde girl is rushing into the room, coming over to him and the boys on the bench.

It's Raven.

She's weeping uncontrollably and she jerks Sean and Alex awake when she runs into Erik's knees as she slides a bit on the floor in her jeans and puts her head in his lap. "Tell me is isn't true! _Please_!"

"That what isn't true?" Sean asks, rubbing his eyes. He was just having the best dream: he and Alex were flying, glider-like fabric under Sean's arms, and when they landed they were in front of a large, beautiful castle with ivy growing along it, and Charles was in the doorway to welcome them home, and even though he was in a wheelchair, that was okay, Sean knew, because it was just a battle scar of their great escape from the insane asylum, and now that Sean is awake he wishes he could have remained in the dream because it was so much _nicer_ there.

Raven is gawking at Sean, he realizes. She hasn't said a word while he was recapping his dream, and her eyes are bit and blue flecked with gold, staring at him. "You… you really do talk," she says, and it sounds like a softly spoken revelation. She stands clumsily and wraps her arms around him. "It's so good to hear what your voice sounds like."

He nods. Sometimes his own voice startles him, too. But not right now. Right now, all he can think about is the Profe– _Charles._

Raven turns from Sean to Erik and repeats, "Tell me it's not true, though. I need to hear it."

"Charles was stabbed, Raven. I don't know what truth you're trying to avoid, but that's one we can't evade," Erik utters sternly and quietly.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly side-to-side, hair flouncing. She bows her head, clutches her arms by the elbows, and takes a step back. "Is…" She swallows, gathering strength in her voice. "Is he going to live?"

"We cannot be sure," Azazel utters as he steps out from behind the double-doors and slowly takes her into his arms.

"Azazel!" she exclaims softly, and she looks up at him. "Were you in there? Did you see him? Is he all right?"

He strokes her hair, his blue eyes a tender, dim blue as he peers down at her.

"Tell us something, man," Alex cuts in with an interrupted yawn. He stands, muscles stretching and straining after sleeping in an uncomfortable position. He takes a stiff step forward, then another, more graceful one. "What's going on?"

"It is not lookingk very good," Azazel utters shallowly, his tone off. He looks away, changes the topic from Charles to other matters. "Janos was fired, but I surprisingly was not. Warden Frost… she must be planningk something, I suspect. Planningk something to do with us."

"But… what would it be?" Erik grumbles, shifting his gaze elsewhere.

Moira joins them in the hall just then. She has blood on her apron and smeared on her face as she wipes her hands. Tear trails disrupt the smudges, cutting through the blood like remover on paint. She sniffles and dusts off her hands as she tosses a wet wipe into the trash.

"He's alive," she says, and Erik stands, patting the boys on the shoulder as he does so. Moira looks to him, and she feels somehow guilty for being the one in there with Charles when his true lover was not. "You… can go see him, if you like. But up to two visitors at a time, please. He's conscious; he technically has been the entire time, but we can't overwhelm him."

The nurse steps to the side to let Erik and Raven through as they rush into the emergency room, the only hospital-like part of the entire asylum, built with the sole purpose being to rescue any suicidal patients or ones who were hurt by other patients, like in this case.

Erik forces himself not to notice the small morgue with six slide-out compartments in a tall metal box against the wall, used for keeping bodies cold until they can be properly taken away from here and buried. He forces himself not to think about the two bodies in there, Sebastian Shaw and Angel Salvadore. (He heard of the latter corpse from Darwin, who came by mourning her and the failed escape plan earlier.)

Raven wraps her arms around one of Erik's, holding him for security as she worries his plump bottom lip and walks with him into the Recovery Room, white curtains drawn around every empty bed but one, the single occupied cot in the room.

A heart rate monitor bleeps every so often, marking a steady heartbeat, which is a good sign. Erik releases a breath he knew he'd been holding ever since Nurse MacTaggert stepped out of the E.R.'s doors.

"Charles?" comes Raven's whispery voice first. She flies from Erik's side and crashes into the railing on the side of the cot, her hands clinging desperately to it, her skin pulled taunt over her knuckles and her fingertips turning red and white. "Charles! I-I heard what happened! How do you feel? Are you all right?"

"Shh, shh, I'm fine, my dear," Charles says quietly, reaching up a pale hand to faintly stroke her sun-kissed cheek. He can feel the softness of makeup under his fingers. He is very weak, and his eyes are droopy. "Is Erik around?"

"I'm right here, Charles," the other man cuts in quickly, stepping up beside Raven, within Charles' view. He leans down, and he tries not to show how much he's shaking, so he refrains from reaching out and touching the bed-ridden man. "I'm right here."

" _Erik_ ," Charles stresses, his eyes watering up, his eyes still such a piercing, impossible shade of blue even through the pinkness of the rest of his eyes and the bleached lighting of the room. "I'm so, _so_ sorry, Erik. If I had just been more alert, more _careful_ –"

" _Don't_!" Erik spits, turning his head away. It might be his imagination, but the metal of the rail beneath his hands begins to give way underneath his iron grip, bending beneath his palm and fingers. It heats under his touch, turning from stiffly cold to oddly warm. "Don't even start, Charles. How the fuck could this have been _your_ fault when you're the one who's lying in the hospital bed while the rest of us got away with barely a few scrapes and bruises?"

Raven looks between them with concern softening her facial features. These are the two men who stir the most emotion in her aside from Azazel, and these two men make her feel more like the childish Raven she used to be than anyone else ever possibly could. She hangs her head, feeling she can't do anything for once, and holders her arm in front of her. She grinds her teeth and wishes she could say something.

Charles places his hand over the one of Raven's remaining on the guardrail. He smoothes his thumb over her skin. "Raven, did any of the boys get away?" he asks in a tone that shows he's trying not to upset Erik more by asking the same thing to taller man.

The blonde shakes her head. "No," she utters lowly. "They couldn't do it, not without you and Erik. They had to come back for you. Only… when they had…"

Charles nods. He sees it now. And while he gives credit to the boys for their loyalty, "They really should have gotten away if they could have," he murmurs mostly to himself, completing the thought.

Erik pounds a fist atop the guard on the side of the cot. "I _know_! I even told them that they should have. This probably would've still happened, but at least they would have been safer! It's a waste that none of us got away –"

"You still might be able to," Raven offers, placing a hand on Erik's shoulder to calm him down. She forces a smile. "As soon as Charles is healed in a few months, his stitches gone and his scar tissue formed, you can try again. Who knows? Maybe by then you'll simply be released, like me."

He removes himself from her grip and starts to pace away from the bed. "It's not that simple, Raven. We're in deep shit. The warden is going to be pissed, and everything is going to fall apart."

"But… we can still have each other, Erik," Charles responds, lifting his head (and only that, because he does _not_ want to disrupt his stitches and tear the wound open again, to make it bleed anew) to speak. "Even if we are all tossed back into the D-Wing for this, at least we'll be _together_."

"Charles is right," Raven points out. "You only need a little faith."

"I don't have faith in very much," Erik retorts. He slowly walks back to face the pair again, and his face relaxes. "Except… I do have faith in you, Charles. In your judgment. And I have faith that you might very well be correct."

"Rarely am I not," Charles grins lopsidedly. He groans for a moment, a hand clutching the center of his torso, below his pectorals.

Erik's eyes flash with panic, and he stoops down over the cot to pry Charles' fingers away. "Careful," he tells the younger man, "Don't make it worse."

"I won't," Charles gasps. He squeezes his eyes closed for a moment, brow twitching, before his face goes lax and the tension leaves his shoulders. The spasm of pain has passed, thank God. He breathes easier as he opens his eyes and asks, "Will you send in the boys? I want to make sure they're all right as well."

"Of course," Erik says. He leans over the guardrail and presses a delicate kiss on Charles' forehead as if the man were as fragile as porcelain. Then, just as gently, he plans another tender kiss on Charles' lips, and Raven looks away quickly; it feels too intimate for her to spy on.

When Erik leaves, Raven lingers a second more, hovering near the cot. Charles smiles, the quirk of lips like a replacement chuckle until his wound heals. "It's all right, Raven. You can give me a kiss, too."

She blinks back tears and nods silently. She bends over, hands supporting her on the rail, and gives him a peck on the cheek. "I love you. I'll come by and visit as soon as I can," she promises.

"I know you will, sweetheart," Charles answers. He runs a hand through her wavy locks and then taps her nose. "Now go. This isn't a place for you any longer. You're a free bird, Raven. A free little blackbird."

This time, she doesn't hold back her tears as she leaves the room, then the hall, and then the building altogether. Azazel is just outside of it, waiting to take her home to her apartment, one she is renting until Charles is out of Schmitt's Home for the Mentally Unstable and can invite her into the house he kept telling her he bought and would share with his favorite fellow patients.

Back inside, however, Sean and Alex are extraordinarily composed as they march into Charles' ward, passing Raven as they go. Sean clenches his shirttail, wringing it in his hands, and Alex keeps a hand on Sean's lower spine as support.

When they enter, Charles' eyelids are fluttering in and out of dozing off and staying awake. "Let's make this fast so that he can sleep," Alex whispers, and Sean nods in agreement. It's for the best.

Charles jerks, hissing in pain, from semi-consciousness. "Boys!" he says with the utmost enthusiasm that he can manage. It's a meager amount. He smiles faintly and spreads his arms where they lie on the cot, IV stuck into the left one. "Come here, come here."

Sean doesn't hesitate as much as Alex. They both lost their parents, and as young as Charles is physically, he has always been more grown mentally. So as they look at him, it's like seeing their father in his sickbed, and it's unnerving. So Alex can't get close. But in the same token, that's all Sean wants to do.

Charles pats the redhead's back as the teenage boy breaks his composure and hides his face in Charles' shoulder, his clammy skin against Sean's cheek.

"I thought we were going to lose you," Sean whispers.

"But you didn't," Charles reminds gently. "You _didn't_."

Alex paces close to the small, raised bed and blows air out his mouth shakily, his face remaining as calm as ever despite how torn to shreds he feels inside. He clears his throat and says very lowly in his deep voice: "But we could have. I knew it was dangerous, but I wanted to leave so badly that I didn't think to stop you! And now look what happened."

"It's fine, Alex, it really is," Charles retorts with a slight frown, his voice sounding exhausted from keeping conscious for so long, even though all the pain. "It might not seem like it, but I have a good feeling about the future, despite how many mistakes we've made."

"How can you say that?" the blond challenges, and at this, Sean raises his head.

"Why can't he?" the freckled boy returns as he moves back behind the railing and looks Alex in the eye. "Aren't we allowed to have hope anymore, Havok?"

"No, we _aren't_! It always ends shittily," Alex curses in reply. "I hoped we could escape and have a life, and then the Professor goes and gets hurt like this? I can't take it, Banshee. I just _can't_."

Charles notices how they slip into the mutant names again as easily as if they had never forgotten. It makes his breathing still for a moment. Sean turns back to him, and Alex turns away. Sean licks his lips and says, "I'm glad we didn't make it fully Outside. We couldn't have done things right without you."

"You would have been fine," Charles responds tiredly. "I wish you had carried out the rest of the plan and gotten away. I'm glad that we can still go through what's to come together, but I feel awful that you didn't escape anyhow, because I promised you that I would do what's best for both of you."

" _You're_ what's best for us," Sean stresses intensely as he grabs one of Charles' hands and squeezes, eyes peering into the wounded man's. "We couldn't have done it without you, like I said. And… I'm just glad I'm not mute anymore; now I can tell you so."

Charles' eyes tear up. One slips down the side of his nose and rolls horizontally across his cheek once it reaches a nostril. "Thank you, Sean," he whispers croakily. He coughs, and the actions sends shocking waves of stinging pain throughout his core. He feels a prick in his stitches, and wonders if he's bleeding again.

Alex sighs gruffly and ruffles his own hair, scrubbing for a moment before glancing down, turning back again. "I'm sorry, Professor. I just… I feel like I should have stayed and been there to protect you. I don't like it that I keep being unable to save the people I care about."

"I know, Alex; I know," Charles murmurs. He holds up a hand, and Alex comes in close, taking it, Sean stepping aside some to give Alex better access. Alex closes his eyes – he refuses to cry right now, dammit! – and cradles the former telepath's hand to his face. "But you did well. You did just fine."

He doesn't feel like it, but he nods. Then, slowly, he and Sean pull away from their mentor and give the man time to sleep as they walk out the double-doors and return to the others.

Erik offers his arms, and Alex is the first to walk into them. He ducks his head and holds on tightly. "I'm so glad he's all right."

"Me too," Erik mumbles, pressing his mouth to Alex's hair, but he doesn't kiss the boy, not hardly. Sean is right behind Alex, thumbs rubbing along the blond's upper arms as he hugs him from behind, making a sort of Alex-sandwich, and it's odd how loved Alex feels; it's almost too much. He nearly cries, but instead, he winds up laughing, chuckling breathily and hiccupping, and he finally lets go. Sean places feather-light kisses to Alex's neck and trapezius, and Erik slowly strokes Alex's hair with one hand with the other rubs soothing circles on Sean's shoulder.

This is the scene Hank finds not five minutes later. Sean has his head turned to the side, resting on Alex's back, and Erik has his head bowed, eyes closed. Hank's chest aches, and Moira smiles faintly as she comes up beside him and tells him softly, "You should go join them. They're your family, too."

So, after a moment's hesitation, he does so. He worms his way in on the side, arms wrapping around Erik and Sean, and his lips brushing against Alex's cheek. Moira smiles, her heart aching in the best way, and shoos other nurses away as she leaves the boys be.

After she's gone, they break apart slowly and some sniffle, some rub their eyes, and one – Hank – dares to close the silence in favor of conversation. "We're still going to get out of here one way or another, because that's what Charles is going to want, isn't it?" He pauses as the other three attempted-escapees look at him puzzlingly. Hank offers a small smile as he adjusts his glasses. "And this time, I'm coming with you."


	16. Escape Means Sanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're all perfectly sane. There's no need to place you somewhere you don't belong."

The presiding warden, Emma Frost, steps onto the threshold with a distinctive click-clack of high-heeled shoes. Moira steps aside; this is one nurse she can't shoo away.

The blonde smirks at Moira and glides past her, entering the waiting room of the asylum's lone E.R. wing and stops before a crowd of four men caught up in a discussion of sorts, arguing back and forth. Pfft, _men._ Must they debate everything? Can't they just agree?

She rolls her eyes a little and flips her hair over her shoulder to keep from tickling her cleavage. "Gentleman," she addresses with her smile in place, "Shouldn't you be returning to your rooms? You all deserve some of your own recovery time after an incident like yesterday's."

"Yeah, but which rooms?" Alex mutters as he steps away from the group, turning around to face her. He's frowning deeply, and it only makes Emma smile broader. He clenches his fists at his sides. "New ones in the D-Wing for acting out, trying to escape?"

"No, it's far too full with the worst of the rioters for that," the blonde woman replies, waving his fears aside. Her smile appears to soften. "Besides, I figure if you boys are coherent and sane enough to formulate an escape plan and execute it so well – being so near to making it! – then why should I punish that?"

They all stare at her in disbelief. Are they hearing correctly? Is she… letting them off the hook? "But _why_?" Erik has to know.

Emma laughs, and it's a cheerful, lighthearted sound. "Why? Silly man, don't you understand? No patient nor group of patients has ever tried to escape before, at least not on record as far as I can tell. You four – replacing Hank with Charles, that is – are the first to gather your wits enough to consider it. And maybe that makes you more insane than the rest, but I don't see it that way. Plenty have wanted to leave, it's true, but most have either randomly run or up and decided to start cooperating enough to heal. You, however… you formulated an elaborate scheme and carried it out to the letter up until the point where my former lover messed it all up."

The blonde woman looks uncommonly understanding, and it throws the boys off. Hank cocks his head at her and takes a timid step closer. He plays with his fingers in front of him as he cautiously asks, "S-so, what you're is…?"

"You're all perfectly sane. There's no need to place you somewhere you don't belong. You will all reside in A-Wing until Charles Xavier recovers, and after that, I'm signing the release papers." She smiles warmly, her usually cold eyes reflecting light in a merry way, as if she's trying to make up for so many wrongs. "You'll be home free in no time."

Erik freezes, blinking. He… he can't believe this. He honestly cannot wrap his mind around it. There's something wrong here, isn't it? Something must be wrong. They don't get let off this easily. He narrows his gaze at her and growls as he takes a step or two in front of the teenage boys, holding out his arms to protect them.

"There has to be a catch! No warden in their right mind of either a mental hospital or a prison would let attempted-escapees off the hook like that! What's the catch, Miss Frost? Are you in fact signing us up for the forbidden lobotomies? Are you secretly going to gas us or put us under euthanasia like some modern-day Holocaust victims? – Just what are you playing at?" Erik snaps, his voice rising as he dares to look her in the eyes, his fiery orbs meeting her collected ones.

"I'm not playing at anything," she answers, her tone and octaves resembling peace. "I can even bring in your friend Armando or Azazel the guard who helped you to vouch for me. I just came back from speaking with them both. I was as open and honest with them as I'm being with you. I respect you, all of you. You're the most remarkable cases this facility has seen. I've been going through the papers; you are all so unique, and so unified. It's astounding." And Emma actually has a sincere expression on her face, and her hands are speaking volumes with the way they are empathetically grasping one another.

Erik eases back a step and looks her over. If she's lying, then she's the most convincing liar in the world, because this has the exact appearance and feel of the absolute God's honest truth. "How can we trust you?" Erika ventures, his final doubts displayed out in the open.

The blonde woman shakes her head. "You can't, not really. I'm the warden, you are all the patients. But you have no choice but to go along with it and wait and see if I'm telling the truth or not. No matter how many times I insist I am, I know you will refuse to believe it until you see it. So I'll leave it at that." She starts to walk away. "But boys, your things are indeed being moved as we speak to your new A-Wing rooms. While Xavier heals, you will be free to visit him as you please. And you all have Break and Outside privileges to test the outside world with to see if you're as ready for it as you thought. Please, take the opportunity, won't you?"

And then she's gone, down the hall and out of sight.

But not out of mind.

Alex grits his teeth and stews in thought. Sean and Hank glance at the poor blond in between their own thoughts. And Erik is just about ready to burst into Charles' room, wake him, and explain what just happened.

They wind up doing nothing at all.

They head for the A-Wing in a close group. They find their rooms and are permitted inside. Their doors are left unlocked, which is new to all of them. Hank enters Alex's without a word and keeps him company, sure of his feelings. Sean easily drifts off to sleep, sure of his dreams. And Erik… Erik isn't sure of anything save for the fact that he wishes Charles were here to tell them something. Read her mind and see if she'd lying or not, or at least tell them some form of advice on how to handle this unexpected twist in their journey. Anything would be nice.

Erik just wants to hear Charles' clear, firm voice and feel his warm, flushed skin. He wants to not think so hard about the dangers, and forget for a while. He wants Charles to be good as new. And most of all… he wants to redo Friday evening and make it so the riot hadn't gotten out of hand once they started it, and so their escape had gone on without a hitch.

But having his wants fulfilled is impossible, and he knows it. So it's pointless to waste another passing, pondering thought on them.

Nonetheless, he can't help from feeling the desires. Things like that, a thing one yearns for; those never go away.

-0-

No infection, no torn ligaments or tendons; mostly between muscle fibers and into the barest part of the diaphragm, but not enough to tear it, only scrape it. The knife was of a clean, non-serrated design, and it wasn't very long; perhaps three or four inches from handle to tip. The doctor said he was very fortunate. Even _lucky._

"That should heal in six to eight weeks; and you only need stay here for half of that time. About a month," the doctor had told him. "After that, you should be up and about again, and the scar tissue should be settled in, the stitches removed."

Six to eight weeks until all Charles has from this wound left is memories and a scar, but no pain or lasting damage.

_Lucky._ Yes, he would definitely consider himself "lucky" over "fortunate." He's known true pain, true lasting damage; Professor X's memories have given him that much, and he's written them all down in his memoir. It's terrifying to think about, really; he could have lost something valuable again, including his life.

The fact that he's going to be "perfectly right as rain" again is almost a revolting thought. Shouldn't he have suffered more? Sometimes he wonders. Sometimes he thinks about varying degrees of how that Friday could have gone.

His "what if" scenarios range from no riot and escape at all (saving it for the following day, Saturday) to killing Shaw weeks before the escape to dying on the spot during it (preferably in Erik's arms, because he wouldn't like to die any other way). It's all pointless hypothetical theories, but it's about all Charles has to think about during the long bouts of silence in the hospital ward for the month he's trapped there.

His friends visit him daily, of course. At least each of them every day, just to say hello. Raven comes by once a week; she has a job, she tells him. She got a manager position at a store because they liked her strong-willed personality and thought they could use it to guide others under her. She's making money, and a life. She's saving for her wedding, along with Azazel's own minimal funds from his savings account. She's so stable and healthy, and Charles loves seeing it. It suits her, even if the scatter-brained multi-typed version of her he had loved just as much.

Erik sneaks into Charles' ward at night and comes to lie beside him. Just lies there, staring at the blank, black ceiling, moonlight from the shatterproof windows streaming in from the other side of the room. He holds Charles' hand, talks about the finer, more pleasant parts of his childhood, and Charles listens as he drifts in and out of sleep often. Sometimes Erik kisses him silly, and sometimes Erik barely touches him. Sometimes Erik runs his hands down Charles' body and feels him up under the starchy sheets, the moment quiet and heated, and sometimes Erik has too much to say to do anything of the sort.

During the day, Alex and Sean come by as a pair on occasion, Hank in tow, and they usually have a board game with them that was permitted to them easily, since they are all A-Wing patients (which feels suspicious to all of them, particularly Erik, and yet Charles senses no danger; but that could be his weakness talking). They often bring Monopoly, since Charles enjoys it. But sometimes they bring card or dice games instead, like Uno or Yahtzee.

Darwin stops by here and there, but he's quieter these days. He misses Angel. Charles doesn't blame him; despite what she did, she had what she thought were good intentions, and Darwin loved her, and that's all the reason Charles needs not to hate her for ratting them out even after she agreed to aid them in their escape.

Charles is allowed to see Logan. He's "too dangerous," they say. He's also in solitary confinement for his murder. It makes Charles wonder why something similar isn't being done to Erik, who also killed within the same building. Maybe it's different because Shaw wounded Charles and Angel wounded no one? – He doesn't know. But it makes him a tad nervous.

Moira takes care of Charles more often than not. She said that she requested to be moved from the B-Wing as an attendant there to be an attendant here. And Emma hadn't turned her down.

"She's a strict woman, it's true, but she's also very understanding, I think," Moira replies when Charles asks her why Emma hadn't turned her down like they both thought she might. "I actually think she might be –"

"Impressed with us?" Charles says with a quirk of a smile, finishing her sentence for her. He shakes his head. "No, Moira, dear; I think she's _frightened_ of us instead. Her plan might be to get rid of us as soon as possible not because she's giving us what we want, but because she's getting what she wants, and that's a facility without problems around. She's scared of how we might impact this place if we stay here for however much longer we would have if we had been punished properly."

"Oh, wow," the auburn-haired nurse says with a gasp. "I hadn't thought of it that way!"

"Trust me, it's easy to think of more than you normally would when your thoughts are all you have most of the time over the course of _years_ ," Charles retorts with a half-laugh that is cut off when it starts to hurt him some. He swallows to clear a path in his mucus-lined throat; he knew he shouldn't have drunk that milk earlier. "Now then, Nurse MacTaggert, could you please get me some water? I'm parched."

"Oh! Of course, yes. Be right back," she says, distant smile coming to her lipstick-coated mouth.

And this is how Charles spends his seven and a half weeks of recovery between the hospital and his room in the A-Wing.

And then comes the day where he's once again offered lunch in the warden's office, this time invited by word of mouth from a nurse he has never met before.

He accepts the invite, dresses himself slowly, and marches down the hallway to Emma Frost's office to hear what she has to say.


	17. Offended Truth or Defensive Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She only hopes his reaction was the offended truth and not a defensive lie.

Erik stops Charles halfway down A-Wing, a box in his hands. "Charles? I was just on my way to see you for a game of chess." He frowns when he sizes up the divergent expressions flickering across Charles' face. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm on my way to see the warden. I was summoned," Charles replies swiftly, seemingly nonchalantly. But Erik knows better by the briskness of Charles' strides as he walks past the taller man.

"You're _what?_ " Erik projects loudly, voice bouncing back at him from down the hall. He turns sharply around and jogs for a moment until he's caught up with his lover, the chess board tucked under one of his arms. "The last time this happened, it triggered Shaw's meltdown and made him resent you so much that he tried to _kill_ you!"

"Yes, but that was Sebastian Shaw. This is Emma Frost. I think there is something to be trusted about her chilling ladylike charms," Charles retorts curtly. He doesn't look as confident a she sounds. He clears his throat and moves a bit faster, his abdomen aching for more reasons than one, the least of which being his hunger for lunch. "It will only take a moment, Erik. Why don't you wait in my ward? I could use a game of chess after this. Maybe we could even get tea, since alcohol is never an option here."

"No. I don't like that I wasn't there for you before. I know where you are this time, and I intend on sticking by you. Even if I have to wait out in the hall, I am going to be nearby in case you need me," Erik answers austerely. He grips Charles' arm and looks him straight in the eye. "I can't let anything further happen to you, not after we just got you back to normal again, and we're so close to being actually freed."

The smallest of smiles graces the former telepath's lips. He leans forward, into Erik, and momentarily rubs his forehead into the other man's collarbone. "Thank you, love. I'll never take your protection for grated." He bites his tongue as he pulls away; right now would be the perfect time to ask Erik if he recalls their shared thoughts during the time of Shaw's attack.

It's crucial that he knows, really; it's been in the back of his mind since he came-to in the hospital. If Erik doesn't remember the event, then that means Charles imagined it, and it would set the line. It would mark whether or not everything truly has been a delusion, that Charles _is_ insane and undeserving of freedom, or it would tell that he is the opposite of all of that, and had nothing to worry about in the first place.

…The problem is this, however: _he's too terrified to find out._ So he holds back the vital question. Instead, he plows onward toward Emma's office, his partner following closely beside him.

He knocks on Emma's door, the fogged glass of the window with her name on it preventing him from peering inside to even begin to gage the premise of the situation. He sighs, glances at Erik, and the taller man gives him a firm nod.

"Enter," comes Emma's voice; it sounds neutral, and, of course, gorgeous as always.

Charles steps in through the door, the brass knob of it feeling old and dirty. He dusts off his hand in a paranoid manner onto the side of his sleek khaki trousers. He adjusts the tie around his neck to a more breathable length as he sits down in the chair across from the blonde woman. She's casually watering a plant; a little curled sprig of bamboo around a perfectly straight spring of the same plant. It can't be more than seven inches high, excluding the sprout atop it, all leafy and green.

"Welcome," Miss Frost says as she sets down the water bottle she had been using for her bamboo. She smiles and sits down, more than Shaw ever did. There is no food around, despite the fact that it's lunch hour. _Well,_ Charles thinks, _at least she's not working under false pretenses that way, distracting me with a meal like Shaw had._ She goes on, "But could you please tell Mr. Lehnsherr to come in? It's rude to wait outside the door and eavesdrop. He might as well be part of the conversation. There's no need to puppy-guard the office; I don't intent to hurt you. Not _either_ of you."

Swallowing hard, Charles turns and gives a nod toward the slightly ajar door. Erik opens it and slips inside, shutting it behind him without having to be told to.

"There, that's much better," Emma says as she laces her hands together. "I had a feeling you two would come as a pair, so now that that's out of the way, we can get down to business."

"Yes, we can; and the sooner the better, too," Erik responds as he chooses to lean against a metal file cabinet with his arms crossed over his chest. There's a spare chair beside Charles, but Erik prefers to stand, Charles knows, in order to be on his guard more efficiently.

Emma's lips twitch, her icy blue gaze on Erik. "Don't rush me, Lehnsherr. This is a delicate procedure."

"And what procedure might that be?" Charles inquires softly, his tone polite and curious.

Emma beams. "I'm glad you asked." She opens a drawer from her desk and withdraws a few papers. She taps them onto the desktop to straighten them out. She places them facedown, smoothing them out, and then drums her manicured nails upon the back of the papers. "These, right here, are your release forms. Summers', Cassidy's, McCoy's, and each of yours. All five have been signed and approved of by myself, our two top therapists, the Strykers, and at least one nurse. I chose Moira, naturally. And with that, all that's left to do is have the receptionist write in the time-out portion opposite your check-in, and then you will all be set to leave. _Free_ to leave, and hopefully never return."

Charles' jaw drops. He stands from his seat, scrambling to stabilize himself on his suddenly wobbly legs. "You… you're pulling my leg. Are you truly releasing us, no strings attached? After all we've done?"

Emma's face takes on an expression Charles has never witnessed there before. She stands, eyes downcast. She turns and lightly touches a fingertip to the young bamboo plant. "Do you know why bamboo is such a precious crop in China?"

Her tone sounds scarily like how Shaw's used to get. Charles swallows hard again, his heart picking up its pace. "N-no. Do tell, please."

She nods, glancing away from him. "It's because bamboo grows very quickly. In another year or two, this plant will be as tall or taller than five feet high, if taken care of and repotted when necessary. Bamboo feeds all of the pandas, keeps them from being extinct. Bamboo is durable and strong; not to mention versatile. It can be eaten, used for furniture, and even decoration, like this plant I have here. And for all of that, it's a very important thing to keep around."

"…Is there a point to you sharing this with us?" Erik grunts, always unafraid for himself. He doesn't care if she so much as backhands him for his slapdash words; as long as she doesn't touch Charles, Erik could care less what becomes of himself.

She nods, turning back to them. "There is. My point is this: I am like bamboo. Like how it grows, I quickly stepped up to the plate to care for this case, even when someone else more qualified could have been hired by the state-governed agency which funds this place. And like how it is durable and versatile, as am I." Her grin looks a bit wicked as she adds, "I'm the sort of person who works for myself. If a man loves me, I'll take what I can get from him before disposing of him. If an employee supports me, I will take all their help until I no longer need it. If one side of the government or morality suits my needs, I will choose it. It doesn't matter to me."

"A wise way to live," Charles remarks, and Erik gawks at him. The former telepathic man peers over his shoulder as he slowly sits back down. To his lover, he clarifies, "Because then you will always protect yourself from harm. You might use others, but at least you will be safe." He nods, looking into Emma's eyes. "A respectable existence, in my opinion. Many would think it the opposite, but I see it as human nature to make a life for oneself and survive by any means possible."

"Exactly right," the blonde agrees in a gentle voice. "See? I knew Sebastian was wrong to mistrust you. You're a very intellectual man, Charles Xavier. And that's why I believe you really will do well outside of these walls."

"Thank you," he murmurs quietly.

Erik grits his teeth and takes a lunging step forward, his fists clenched and partially raised. "How do we know this isn't some sort of trick? You're being far too caviler about this, Warden Frost. For all we know, those papers are the sort that deem us incurable and will condemn us to a life here where we're too sedated to remember our own names!"

Charles hastily stands again to grip his lover by the shoulders. "Erik, please! Calm your mind!"

The former metalbender's eyes are blazing. " _No,_ Charles; not this time. I'm tired of hearing you say that, not when rage is required. I won't have her fuck us over!"

Emma keeps her cool. She fluffs her hair and stands, picking up the papers as she does so. "You don't trust me? Fine. See for yourself." And she moves to stand before the two men. She raises the papers, their fronts facing the two patients, and it's clear what's written on them. "And you can even walk with me right now to the receptionist to finalize them. Once it's been written down and recorded into the computer, it's official. No lies or take-backs."

"That's not true," Erik retorts, and gently pushes Charles off to the side as he gets nearer to the female warden. "Paper can burn. Computer files can be deleted."

"Not if they are on an online register that connects automatically to the state's records. It's impossible to erase something like that without going through governmental walls, and really, who would be that thorough if they were trying to off you? –No, I can assure you, Mr. Lehnsherr, I'm not trying to trick you. I'm honestly letting you go. Shouldn't you be happy about that?" Emma says, and her voice is earnest and true enough.

"If that's true, then why have the written documents? Why not keep everything on the computers all the time, including the files in the File Room?" Charles wants to know.

Emma shrugs and places her free hand on her hip while the one holding the papers falls to her side. "The written papers are a formality, your files in the File Room tradition. The real records are on the computers, and the computers are updated to the state's records all the time. Each transaction is held there, including what you all did. But I'm willing to bypass the mess and save all of you with typed half-truths about your progress. You should be _thanking_ me."

"I want to thank you, I honestly do," Charles says after a moment of Erik's contemplation next to him, "But how can we be sure of anything? We… we haven't had the easiest lives here. We've been trained to be wary of all forms of authority. And you –"

The blonde waves it aside. She shakes her head. "I know how you feel about me, Mr. Xavier. I've read your book, you know. Whenever Sebastian would check it, so would I. I would read each new entry. I read how the version of me you created worked with Sebastian, then 'Magneto,' and then even for you at your school to help run it. And honestly, I like that version of me the best. I was safest that way, and it was closer to how I'm doing things now. It feels right, _familiar._ So please believe when I say that I know how you feel, but you're going to have to trust me on this. I'm doing what's best."

"For us, or for yourself?" Erik dares to question.

Emma looks directly at him into his glasz eyes as she replies, "For me, but it's good for all of you, too. It saves my job and keeps this facility running at its finest without all of you around to cause trouble, it's true. But it's also giving all of you what you want, and what you've earned and deserve. I'm on my own side, but it happens to also be yours on this matter."

Charles and Erik eye her for a long time, looking for any hidden lies.

There aren't any. Emma Frost is telling the truth. She genuinely wants them out of her hair… and is simultaneously assisting them in their second escape without them having to lift a finger.

It seems too good to be true.

But for once, it _isn't._

-0-

"Did you hear the news, Nurse MacTaggert? We're going to be released! _Today!"_ Sean says in a chipper voice as he comes running back from Charles' room where he found the other man packing everything up, like his papers and typewriter and clothes. "Isn't it exciting?"

She smiles warmly and broadly, tears pricking her eyes. "Yes, it's wonderful," she says with a huff of a laugh. So this is it, huh? The last she will get to see of all of these patients she's grown to intimately attached to, namely one Charles Xavier. She inhales jaggedly, her emotions haywire with a bright mix of elation and woe; she's so happy for all of them, but she's going to be a moping mess for a while after they have gone.

She stops in Alex's room, but Erik is already in there, helping the blond pack and telling him of their post-asylum plans, where to live and work and how to live and be again without having others "breathing down your neck every five seconds." She smiles and dabs at her eyes as she moves on to Hank's room.

"Hank?" she says, knocking on the open door. He's dressed in a plaid button-up shirt with blue jeans and a belt that matches his worn dress shoes. He's nervously cleaning off his glasses when she walks in.

He flushes pink at being caught with his ward all messy. "O-oh! Hi, Nurse." He rushes to pick up a few stray articles of clothing from the floor and toss them into his suitcase.

"Hello, Hank," she greets with a small chuckle. She moves in beside him and lifts one of the tossed shirts, folding it in midair and replacing it into the suitcase. She selects another and folds it as well as she says, "It's been amazing watching all of you progress to being the best versions of yourselves as you can be. I'm so proud of all of you."

He blushes and smiles warmly, his teeth hidden behind his lips. He glances down and packs a few more small possessions into the case. "Yeah. It feels weird to know that I'm leaving and going with the people I didn't want to be separated from when I surely thought I would be. I'm not being left behind; I'm being included, and that in and of itself is…" He grins wider and almost laughs. "Well, it's mind-boggling in a really nice way, let's just say."

"I'd imagine!" Moira responds with a matching smile. She helps with the last few bits of clothing and then helps zip his suitcase shut. "There, all packed and ready to go. Would you like me to walk you to the front desk?"

Hank shakes his head, flipped brunet hair bouncing. "Nah, that's all right. I was going to walk with Alex and Sean. We're going to wait for Erik and Charles so that we can all leave together."

"Okay," the nurse says, feeling a little useless. She can't be much help to them now; it's like a parent watching their child go off to college: once the bird leaves the nest, it's free to fly where it likes, and there's nothing the parent can do. All of their nurturing and care has filled its purpose, and now the child must be independent.

Except Moira's "children" were mostly – if not fully – grown to begin with, and she only nursed them part of the time. For the other part, they took care of themselves and one another. And even now, she has nothing to worry about, because the younger ones like Hank will be taken care of by the older ones like Charles, and that thought comforts her.

"Goodbye!" she says, waving as Hank walks down the corridor to the main entrance. He glances back over his shoulder and waves his free hand at her. She lets slip a few tears for how joyful he is.

Moira passes William Stryker on her way to Charles' room. The man nods at her, psychiatrist's clipboard in the crook of one of his arms. He wrinkles his developing beard and smiles. "He's so much happier. I've never seen a patient improve so vastly from feigned cheerfulness to true happiness like I've seen in him," he says. He shakes his head, touching Moira's shoulder as he walks by. "If only I could make that James Howlett smile the same way, eh? He's a wild animal, and a real mess."

It actually takes her a moment to remember that he means Logan. Everyone else calls him Logan, even the other nurses, and even he warden, for the most part. Moira nods. "Yes, if only. But I'm sure you or your father can fix him, too, like you helped Charles and his friends along." She beams at that.

Her smiles falls, however, when Stryker Jr.'s face falls. "I hardly did a thing for any of them. It was all them, their progress stemming off of their influence and support of one another. They're unique cases in that aspect."

And with that, Stryker leaves her be, alone in the hallway. She is frozen in place, puzzling over that for a moment.

Charles' voice snaps her from her thoughts when he suddenly appears at the front of the hallway, not five feet from his room. "Ah, Moira! There you are, my dear."

He jogs over to her and sets down his suitcase on the floor beside him. She blinks and brings a smile to her lips. "Hello, Charles. Or should I be saying goodbye?"

"That would be more appropriate," he jokes, leaning back on one foot. "It's what I came to you to say, after all. I couldn't leave until I found you to say farewell and properly thank you for all that you've done for me through the years, all the way until the end. So thank you, Moira; my gratitude knows no bounds. And goodbye. I hope we can someday meet again."

And with that, he moves in and wraps his arms around her, cradling her to him, and she completely loses it. She cracks and breaks in his arms, tears overflowing and sobs causing her to tremble. She clings to the fabric on the back of his sweater and buries her face in his chest, careful not to stain his tie with her tears. She inhales, and for the first time, Moira doesn't smell medicine or dust or cleaning products or parchment and ink on him; instead, she smells something like cologne and manly musk, and it damn near breaks her heart.

"I love you," she confesses tearfully, and she can't remove herself from him to say it to his face. He tenses in her grasp, and she gasps, swallows, and says clearer, "But I know that you love Erik Lehnsherr. I just… I wanted you to know before you left, Charles. I wanted you to know why I risked so much for you, and why I protected your schemes. It's because I accidentally fell in love with you, one of my patients. And I knew it would end like this, but I couldn't help it."

"Oh, oh, oh," he says sympathetically. He kisses her hair over her ear, his breath warm on her scalp. She shivers and sniffles, some of her tears drying as she calms down under the loving stroke of his hand in her hair on the other side of her head. "I know, Moira, I know. I also knew something like this might happen, but I'm glad that you're so understanding. I do love Erik, it's true, but I care about you. And I'm beyond thankful to you, and that's something grand, isn't it? Even if I don't deserve an ounce of your love or Erik's, it's still a grand thing, is it not?"

He pulls away, swiping at her tears with his thumbs, and offers a kindhearted smile. She knows he was a killer, and that's why he feels he doesn't deserve any love. But it was only ever one evil man, wasn't it? No matter how gory the death, it was merely _one_ man. Charles is too sweet and charming to be entirely devious, and she believes that. (She _trusts_ that.)

So she smiles in return, and nods her head. "Yes," she agrees quietly, "It's something grand."

He angles her head down and kisses her forehead, lips lingering as he released her head with his fingers slipping through her forelocks with gentleness no killer could ever manage, so she knows that he truly is a changed man, despite the lies and tricks and manipulation and everything else he's been through and done. She can't forget any of it, but she loves him despite all of it. Everyone likes Charles despite all of it. And she knows that yes, his sins are behind him, and yes, he's going to be _just fine._

Except… she has to ask: "Charles?"

"Hmm?" he hums as he picks up his case and tilts his head at her, ready to walk away. "What is it? You look unsure about something."

"…Do you still believe that you were a mutant in some other life?" Moira utters, clearing her throat in the beginning to maintain her courage and rid her voice of its teary tone.

Charles' face takes on a flicker of pain and confusion and confliction that stuns her. Her lips part and she takes a step back, because as soon as the flicker is gone, Charles' face drops into a perfectly deadpan expression.

"No," he answers frigidly. And then he turns and walks down the hall. "Goodbye, Moira MacTaggert," he tells her with a contradictory impersonal tone, although his voice softens tremendously as he adds, "Never change how you are, dear. And never change how you remember me; I beg of you." Then he's gone, Erik matching his pace with Alex at his side, and the three of them are moving past the metal doors at the far front of the hallway.

Before the doors close and all three men are at the front entrance and out of sight, Erik peers back at her and seems to send a narrow-eyed glare.

Moira breeds goosebumps on her flesh where she stands, as if a breeze blew by under her skirt. She rubs her arms and shakes her head. A small drop of doubt plummets to the bottom of her gut; what if she was wrong? What if part of Charles never changed, like the part that believed in a delusion? If so, is it really all right if he's released now?

She can't know the answer. She only hopes his reaction was the offended truth and not a defensive lie.


	18. A Relatively Happy 'Ever After'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles' bones feel as though they are freezing up and aching. He shakes his head. "No, I didn't. I was just curious," he lies.

"I hate movies that have endings like _Repo Men, Inception,_ and _SuckerPunch,_ " Erik grumbles as they finish the last of the list. He shoves another bite of popcorn into his mouth. "It always makes me doubt things. If technology were more advanced nowadays, I would second-guess every moment of my life, fearing it might be a dream like the ending of _Inception,_ or worse yet, a cleverly crafted false reality like the perfect escape at the end of _Repo Men._ I would be paranoid knowing such technology existed; what if it were used on me? I might be happy, but I would be inside of a realistic lie, and it would disturb me. It's like the _Matrix_ 's basic world all over again."

"Perhaps," Charles agrees as he gets up to take out the _SuckerPunch_ DVD. He sets it in its casing and returns to the couch to drape a blanket over Alex and Sean, who fell asleep in each other's arms. Hank is yawning and stretching, blinking from his own nap.

"Drat. Did I miss the ending again?" Hank mumbles as he forces himself up off the sofa. "I need to stop doing that."

"Yes, but we all had a big day today; we did an awful lot of shopping, and that can drain just about anyone. I'm not surprised that all three of you conked out while the room was dark and the screen was humming," Charles smiles as hank walks by. He pats the boy on the back. "But now it really is time for bed, so sleep well and I'll see you in the morning. There's still much left to do."

"Mmhmm," the spectacled boy nods, yawning again. "G'night, Professor."

And it's actually an accurate thing to call Charles, now; after all, he returned to school, picked up his credits again – it's only been a few years, so they haven't expired on his record – and built them up again, wrote a thesis, and finally got the professorship he wanted. He has yet to find a proper job, but one will come. He has faith. And until then, he has Erik's income to help support them, and with the boys legally paying rent with money from their own odd jobs to Charles like a boarding house, it's just as well to keep up the house.

Erik stands and pecks Charles on the cheek as Charles shuts off the television and closes the doors on the entertainment center to hide the DVD player and digital cable box. "See you upstairs. I need to brush my teeth and change. Take up the popcorn bowl, won't you?"

"Lazy-arse. You could just as well do it," Charles chuckles quietly, giving his lover a shove.

"Yes, but why bother when you can do it for me?" Erik retorts as he winks and walks away, heading up the stairs.

Charles' cell phone goes off in his pocket once he reaches the kitchen. He dumps the leftover popcorn in the trash, sticks the bowl in the bottom rack of the dishwasher, and closes the lid of it with a lift of his heel and a bump of his hip. He whips out the cellular device and leans against the counter in front of the dishwasher as he reads his text.

_[Is it OK if I come over 2morro after work? I have sumthing 2 show u. It's a surprise.]_

Charles grins at the screen. The text came from Raven's phone, and there's a small smiley face at the end of the message. He laughs to himself and replies, _[Of course you may. You can even bring your husband if you like. See you soon. Love you.]_

He shuts the tiny keyboard on his phone and slides it into his pocket again. He heads for the master bedroom, passing the boys' empty rooms as he goes. He probably should have woken them up and made them get up for bed, but knowing them, Sean would be too tired to move and Alex too grumpy. So he simply closes their doors to keep the cat from getting into the tanks of either Sean's pet fish or Alex's pet tarantula.

Hank is already snoring in his own bedroom, and when Charles peeks in through the crack in the door, hallway light spilling in, he's warmed to find the cat curled into a ball by Hank's feet, both of them lying atop the covers. The cat stirs, squinting open its pumpkin-orange eyes and blinking at Charles and the source of light he's made.

"Sorry Oogie," he smiles, backing off and flicking the light switch in the hall. The cat is, of course, black and longhaired, always ruffle-furred, and male. He's named jokingly after the Boogieman, out of Sean's childhood fear of said creature. At first Sean refused to call the cat by its name, but sooner or later it stuck too much for him not to. And it's not like the cat minds in the least. Besides, it likes Hank and Erik best, so it hardly matters.

Yawning, Charles moves into the master bedroom's private bathroom and uses his sink beside Erik's to brush his teeth. Erik is already in his nightclothes – briefs, lounge pants, and no shirt – and sitting up in bed, legs crossed at the ankle, with a book in his hands. Rilke's poems, by the look of the cover from a distance. It's one of Erik's favorites, and Charles almost thinks he senses some irony in that.

Rinsing out his mouth, Charles puts in his teeth-guard – he has this God-awful habit since he left the psychiatric ward to unknowingly grind his teeth or clench his jaw while he sleeps – and starts to shrug off his clothing in favor of his silky, powder blue pajamas.

As Charles steps out of the bathroom, his dirty clothes of the day in the hamper, he crawls into bed and cuddles up against Erik's side. " _Childhood?_ " he asks, guessing at the title written in German across the top of the page.

"Yes," Erik says, about to turn the page.

"Wait," Charles says, catching Erik's wrist. He smiles up at Erik's face. "Read it to me? In English, if you don't mind, so that I can understand it."

"Sure," Erik says, shrugging. He clears his throat, and then his voice rings out with a strong, calm reading voice as he recites a translated version of the lyrical poem:

"It would be good to give much thought, before  
you try to find words for something so lost,  
for those long childhood afternoons you knew  
that vanished so completely -and why?

"We're still reminded-: sometimes by a rain,  
but we can no longer say what it means;  
life was never again so filled with meeting,  
with reunion and with passing on

"As back then, when nothing happened to us  
except what happens to things and creatures:  
we lived their world as something human,  
and became filled to the brim with figures.

"And became as lonely as a shepherd  
and as overburdened by vast distances,

"And summoned and stirred as from far away,  
and slowly, like a long new thread,  
introduced into that picture-sequence  
where now having to go on bewilders us."

Charles hums, eyes closed, and rolls away, onto his back. "Beautiful."

"Hn," Erik agrees minutely as he flips to the next poem. "Not to mention nostalgic."

"I like it that way," Charles replies dreamily. The single lamp lighting up the room from Erik's side of the bed is a little bright, but Charles is exhausted enough not to mind. "Just like how I'm actually fond of movies that end the way you dislike."

"That again?" Erik snorts, eyes skimming another poem, the German beginning to run together. It's time for sleep, his eyes are saying. He bookmarks his page and leans over to turn out the lamplight. "Because you already know my opinion."

"Mm, yes, I do, but I hadn't had the time to give my own," Charles remarks. He lazily opens one eye and glances over at his partner. "And in my opinion, I like those sorts of endings because they truly make me appreciate the life and reality we have here and now. If things had gone differently… Ended like our mutant lives had, or like any of the lives of those characters had… I don't know where I would be. – Well, dead, in most cases, or zombie-like, but also very tragic, like some Shakespearian character. And thus, I am eternally appreciative of what I have, because everything is peaceful and how a normal live should be."

"But we _aren't_ normal, Charles," Erik counters fluidly as he moves closer in the dark. "You have another soul in your body, an older one from another lifetime. And everyone in this house – aside from the animals, of course – all originate in tragedy and insanity. We _met_ one another through insanity. So how is any of this normal? How is it normal to have two legally wed men semi-raising three teenage boys in some house in upstate New York at all considered _normal_?"

Charles' eyes open and he goes quiet for a long moment. He rolls over onto his side, facing away from Erik. "I only meant that it's relatively normal, in comparison to the lives we used to lead as mutants or psych ward patients or lonely, wandering souls. It's normal, at least, to live in a home and pay for it and have jobs and be with family, surrogate or not. It's normal to live freely and love freely, isn't it? _That's_ all normal, and that's all I meant by the phrase."

"Oh," Erik replies meekly. He sighs, a bit ashamed at himself for jumping on Charles' words like that. He makes up for it by moving closer to his husband and kissing the back of his neck, one of his hands coming around to lightly brush over and tickle Charles' stomach through his silky clothes. "Well, in that case, you're right; it is peaceful and normal. Stressful in an average way, and pleasant in every other way."

"Yes," Charles whispers, closing his eyes again. He comfortably places his hand over Erik's and nuzzles his head backward into Erik's forehead, feeling the warmth of the other's body flow over him. "And now it's time to sleep." A yawn slips out of him as if on cue.

Erik nods, finally closing his own eyes. "Sleep. Yes. I almost forgot that existed."

The shorter man huffs a laugh and nods. And in no time, he's drifting off to sleep.

-0-

When Raven arrives the following day, there's a baby in her arms, a newborn fresh from the hospital. Alex is thrilled and immediately asks to hold it, and he's the last person they expected to want to do so. Hank is terrified, afraid he'll hurt the baby boy or drop him, and Sean is excited but not particularly paternal, so he lets the blond hold the baby first.

Raven smiles and laughs and looks wiped out but utterly happy. She lets Azazel and Erik chat and Alex, Sean, and Hank coo over baby Kurt while she drags her surrogate brother off to the side for a small talk.

"I wanna be completely honest with you, Charles," she says with a sigh, "At first, I didn't want to marry Azazel. I've kind of had this crush on Erik for a while – childish, I know, and I knew how you two felt about each other – and I only liked to flirt with Azazel. He was a friend more than anything else. But at the time, having him help you escape seemed like a good idea, so I went with his conditions for it because I knew he was only asking because he loved me. And you know what?"

The brunet cocks his head. "No, what?"

Raven laughs. "I actually fell in love with him the day before the wedding! You noticed, didn't you, when you were in the pews? I was totally smitten when I walked down that aisle. And now I can't see how I didn't love him before. He's a great guy, and he's been so good with our baby and supporting me during my pregnancy. It's just… amazing, you know? It's frighteningly wonderful to think that you've been away from Schmitt's Home for the Mentally Unstable for over a year now, nearly two for me."

He nods sincerely, his blue eyes somber but his face smiling gently. "It is. I remind myself each and every day to never forget all the blessings I have now. Erik, the boys, this home, you; it's all I could have ever wanted in life. It makes the psych ward seem like a bad dream that's come and gone, and now I'm awake and living."

Raven pulls him into a hug. "My thoughts exactly. It was a nightmare, but now it's _finally_ done with."

"Not entirely a nightmare," Charles remarks. "There were good times in that place as well. It was…" He searches his mind for the right words. Finding them, he smiles into her shoulder and pats her back twice. "It was the loveliest nightmare that anything could have been by definition," he tells her.

The petite blond-haired woman pulls away and laughs. "Sometimes I want to smack you for the way you speak, Charlie. It's annoying."

"What? It's the truth," Charles says with a sniff of offense.

"It's also kind of an oxymoron," Raven retorts with a roll of her eyes. She lightly nicks his chin with her fist. "Anyway, let's get back to the others. I want to hold my baby. I feel naked without him."

Charles giggles a bit at that. Raven feeling naked? It's not such a foreign concept, really.

When they're reunited with the others in the living room, Azazel has Kurt in his arms and is sitting in an armchair. Hank and Alex are locked in a discussion about childcare of all things, and Sean is talking to Erik and Azazel about something else entirely. Raven laughs and immediately moves in to break up the argument between the brunet and blond, and Charles moves into the kitchen.

"What would everyone like to drink?" he calls out to the others.

"Root beer," Alex and Sean chime at the same time.

"Just some water, if you please," answers the Russian.

"Some _actual_ fucking beer," Erik snorts.

"Nothing for me, thank you," Hank replies.

"I'll come in there and get something myself," Raven hollers back. Kurt starts to cry, and his daddy hands him off to his mommy to see if he's hungry. He is. Raven discreetly moves to the corner of the room in the other armchair and lifts her shirt, showing nothing, as she nurses the crying infant. "…Later on," she adds as she glances up and smiles at the others.

Charles carries in the drinks on a tray and gives them to everyone. He steps back, putting the tray onto the dining table, and looks around the open room before him, fireplace unlit behind them and faces sound and sane around him.

He's never felt happier in his life.

Settling down beside Erik, Charles deems it safe to ask a question that has been bothering him for just about a year now. He worries his bottom lip and feels the need to ask, "Erik?"

"Yes?" the other man says, turning away from Azazel for a moment, leaving the Russian to speak to Alex instead.

"…How well to you remember the day we tried to escape?"

"Well enough to recall each moment in vivid detail," Erik frowns, going rigid. "Why do you ask?"

"Did…" Charles tries, but he frowns at himself. After a false start of opening his mouth, he looks into Erik's surprisingly patient eyes and tries again. "Did you hear my voice in your head that day? Telepathically-speaking?"

There is a slow pause that nearly chokes the air out of Charles' lungs with how it stretches on and on for minutes and minutes. At long last, Erik blinks out of thought and shrugs his shoulders. "I can't say I recall. Why do you ask? Did you try sending something to me then?"

Charles' bones feel as though they are freezing up and aching. He shakes his head. "No, I didn't. I was just curious," he lies.

Did Erik forget? Or did the conversation – the reply he thought he heard – only something Charles momentarily made himself think to assure himself of some doubt or another?

He chews on his bottom lip. He felt good about everything until now. Still, he can't let it bother him, can he? He's safe and sound and _sane,_ dammit, and released from the asylum and living with people he loves and would never harm and everything is _fine._ So whatever it was – whatever it could mean – it's nothing, surely. It can't be all that bad, because everyone around him is so utterly content, and this _isn't_ like _Repo Men_ or _Inception_ or _SuckerPunch_ or even _The Matrix._

This is his _life_ , and it's stable and solid after so many years of being rocky and painful, and that's what he knows and all that matters to him.

So Charles gets up, makes himself a scotch on the rocks, and sips at it while all seven of them (well, eight, but Kurt can't talk or anything, so he doesn't count in the same way) enjoy each other's company and talk about recent developments and the like. He doesn't think about it any further, and he simply basks in the glow of his happy ending to a lovely nightmare.

_Finite._


End file.
